In a Thousand Different Ways

by Cecelia Ahern

Sometimes it’s just enough to sit and watch somebody else be happy.

realise Hugh will never stop caring, organising everybody, trying to keep the heavy things light. It’s in his colours.

And I now know that if you don’t feel your own pain, you cannot recognise it in others. Our own suffering can cultivate the ability to help others.

how well people bury it, how they conceal it, how they continue to put one foot in front of the other so seemingly effortlessly and gracefully that I realise how truly phenomenal we are.

Nine months later, arriving in an avalanche of gold from between my thighs, is my daughter. It is a moment of absolute euphoria, the delivery room lights up in brilliant gold as though the gates to another world have opened and shone upon us.

The fragility of final moments. But God, the weight of it. The caretaker, the caregiver. For a moment, at least, care sharers.

I blanket my children and every aspect of their lives because I never had a mother who did that.