Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

Melanie winked at me from the pews, beside her Don made a face to make me laugh and to my utter surprise and delight as I looked ahead of me, beside my grandmother who was checking Mum out from head to toe, I saw Life in the front row, healthy, groomed, handsome but most of all unmistakably happy. He smiled at me proudly, and I was so excited and moved to see him there. It had been just over a month since we’d said our goodbye – for this phase anyway – and even with Don to keep me company I’d missed him every day. As the vows were said, I couldn’t help but look at my life and smile as if we were mentally saying the vows to each other; for better for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.

As long as you’re around, your life is too. So just as you shower love and affection and attention on the husbands, wives, parents, children and forever friends who surround you, you have to do so equally with your life, because it’s yours, it’s you, and it’s always there rooting for you, cheering you on, even when you feel like you can’t do it. I gave up on my life for a while, but what I’ve learned is that even when that happens and especially when that happens, life never ever gives up on you. Mine didn’t. And we’ll be there for each other until those final moments when we will look at each other and say, ‘Thanks for staying until the end.’

And that’s the truth.

Thank you David, for your unshakable support and belief in me, without which I couldn’t have written this book with as much joy and love. Robin, you are yummy and I adore you; this is the one book I’ll allow you to scribble on, enjoy the moment. To Mimmie, Terry, Dad, Georgina, Nicky, Rocco and Jay, thanks for your constant love and support.

Thank you to my agent Marianne Gunn O’Connor for your guidance and encouragement – you’re partly to blame for making my life so exciting. Thank you to my editor Lynne Drew for your advice and skill which make every story a better one. Thanks to HarperCollins, a great big machine made up of such fantastic, hardworking people. I am honoured to be working with you. Huge thanks to Pat Lynch and Vicki Satlow. Thanks to Aslan for allowing me to use the lyrics for ‘Down on Me’.

I’d like to thank my girlfriends. In the interest of world peace, you shall all remain nameless, but thanks for your friendship and most importantly, for sharing your personal stories late into the night and early hours of the morning, all of which have been an endless source of inspiration for this book. Relax, just joking … I never listen anyway.

And finally, I’d like to thank my Life. It’s been really nice meeting you, please stick around.