Here One Moment

by Liane Moriarty

It’s a very particular time in your life, when someone you love is dying. The world doesn’t stop for you. We know this, but in our hearts we are shocked. We are like famous people who say: But don’t you know who I am? Except we want to say, But don’t you know what I am going through? How can you speak to me like that when my mother is dying? There are still red lights and rude people, long lines and lost keys. You can still stub your toe, and it will still hurt like the devil. The difference is that your reaction may be gargantuan. You may react with a rage-filled stream of profanity, the likes of which your aunt hasn’t heard since the war. You may scream in your car at a red light and scare small children. The dying person will not, by the way, always behave like a lovely dying person in a movie. She will not necessarily want to sit on the beach with a blanket wrapped around her thin body, looking wan and beautiful, her eyes wise and sad, a gentle breeze in her hair, while she makes profound remarks and looks at the sea. (I believe I may be describing a scene from the excellent, extremely sentimental movie Beaches.) She may in fact say, “Of course I don’t want to go to the beach, Cherry, I feel so sick, why would you suggest such an idiotic thing?” Your feelings can still be hurt by a dying person. A dying person can still be vain. Stupidly vain. A dying person can take pride in her thinness, point at her hipbones, and say, “Look how skinny I am!” as if it’s a nice bonus,...