In a Thousand Different Ways

by Cecelia Ahern

She has moments of kindness, but she is not kind. She has moments where she cares, but she is not caring. One good moment with her doesn’t make her a good mother, which is why I will never call her that.

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.

I don’t want her to go a single moment without feeling like someone has her back. She’s the type to sit in a room filled with people and still feel lonely, to have sudden feelings of homesickness even though she’s still at home, the type to forget, you see, that she’s not alone, that there’s a circle of love and healing around her if she’d just look up from herself.

A marriage requires two people doing their part, yes, but not necessarily always at the same time. At all times it needs at least one. Sometimes one on the ledge and the other to talk them down. Someone to stay awake at camp to make sure the fire doesn’t go out.