Unbearable

I arrive early for the wedding, on a hot summer's day in Hawkes Bay. It's an auspicious date - or at least a memorable one - a palindrome and an ambigram, I'm told - the same backwards and upside down: 22022022. It is early, so we hide inside, the aircon buzzing, a few guests waiting under the trees outside. A name from the past shoots past my ears, and my subconscious starts ticking over. I look at the man, his height, his laughter, and it clicks. We were school mates, 46 years ago. We hug, we laugh, and he reminds me my hair was jet black back then.

It is two years since my mum died. She was a gentle woman who loved pansies.  After my gorgeous brides say their vows, I drive to meet Mary for a commemorative afternoon tea. I have promised I'll bring the crockery, and she is puzzled to say the least. When I unpack the fine bone china from the bag, in mum's favourite colour, she gets it: it's our way of celebrating the Life of Joy, her crafty friend and confidant. The design is almost identical to the tea set in Call the Midwife (see #17), baked in the same era, a wedding gift or treasured purchase by a young wife.

It is less than a week since I was in Taupo, tending another woman, a friend who passed away on the cusp of a new day. Her ceremony is like no other I have experienced, a private room and beautiful sunflowers, an energetic dog running around us. I am experienced now, yet the privilege of tending the dead doesn't dissipate. There is pleasure too, which I am hesitant to confess, but it is about meaning, about contribution, about peace. 

The drive home is not so peaceful.  People are impatient, and my heart starts to race when I see an ambulance and police car with lights flashing. Then two fire engines, a mini fire truck, and three mufti cars, speeding through Eskdale. This must be serious. I try to stay calm, but when a huge grey Dodge tailgates me, I am unimpressed yet unsurprised: his number plate is RAMMET. 

Sebastian has long, heavy limbs and lies, Romanesque, better than he sits. He is Joy's creation, and now appears on the web page of Weighty Warriors, a charity founded by a mother-and-daughter partnership in Christchurch. The charity supports kids who need emotional regulation or simply a furry friend to hold. On this day - the 11th anniversary of the devastating Canterbury earthquake - I know how precious these toys will be. And the principles of recycling and repurposing fit well with my own philosophy. I believe that Mum would be proud to support it too.


Like me, these women are working to make the unbearable bearable.


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