Just Last Night

by Mhairi McFarlane

Someone once said to me birth was the most ordinary and extraordinary thing you’ll ever experience, simultaneously, and death is the same. The fact of yours sits there, implacably, being so banal and so mind-blowingly strange at the same time. It will always be like this, I have come to realize. The ache is permanent, it must be accommodated. It’s part of my body now.

This is what I never knew about loss—it’s also about what you gain. You carry a weight that you never had before. It’s never behind you. It’s alongside you.

We can’t, Eve. We’re going to go mad if we do. What happened, happened, and our only job is to live with it. Which is enough of a fucking job, frankly. Not beat ourselves up.”

When you pass on something that has good things about it, but isn’t good enough, you’re gambling that something one day will feel better, aren’t you? Stick, or twist. I’m getting old enough to say: I might be wrong about that.”