Helen Brown - After Cleo

Climbing more stairs, I kept concentrating on staying calm while moving forward. By the time we reached the casket room I was too busy focusing on breathing to take much notice of our surroundings. Lydia placed her flower on the tooth casket and we shuffled downstairs before stepping outside into searing white daylight. I’ve rarely felt more relieved.

Outside we encountered an imposing bull elephant the size of a large garden shed. I assumed the creature was a fine example of a taxidermist’s art. When his trunk swayed to life and drifted toward me, I almost bolted up a tree. The elephant’s eyes twinkled mischievously. A man held out a stem of bananas, and the creature unfurled his trunk, wrinkled and worn like an old vacuum cleaner hose, and deftly retrieved them. We watched amazed as the elephant devoured the whole lot in one mouthful – bananas, skins and branch.

The guide escorted us through a courtyard filled with hundreds of women in white sitting under trees while a recorded male voice droned teachings over loudspeakers. Some women were alone and giving the appearance of listening, but most were in groups talking softly to each other.

‘Why are they here?’ I whispered.

‘Because women know more about suffering than anybody,’ our guide explained. ‘They give their lives to their family and then they come here to catch up on time they missed out on.’

A pair of grandmothers nodded and smiled over a shared amusement. A group of middle-aged women sat in companionable silence. Their life stories were written on their faces. No one had discovered pain-free childbirth. They’d all worried themselves sick over their children – husbands and parents, too. They were all givers, taking time out together for a little peace and kindness.

The courtyard had such a gentle ambience I wished I could sit in the shade and linger with them. Even though our lives were different on superficial levels, we were sisters under the skin.

Some of the older women stayed all night long, the guide continued, talking and drinking tea. Younger ones left early, around 5 p.m. – meaning they’d still spent most of the day there.

It was a living, breathing circle of women. In the way I’d found loving support from my yoga group, Mary and my women friends, these Sri Lankan women had formalised the union. I wished there was a place like it in Melbourne where women could go – and just be.

After another white-knuckle tuk-tuk ride up the hill, we returned hot and dusty to our hotel room.

‘Oh my goodness!’ said Lydia, opening the door to behold the sight before her.

Our beds were covered in red flowers painstakingly arranged in geometric patterns contrasting against triangular crimson leaves. Three red flowers had been placed in a row on each of our pillows. Lydia’s pyjamas had been lovingly folded into a rectangle beside her pillow.

Her admirer had certainly done something special.

We changed into our swimwear and walked through the warm evening air toward the pool, passing a sign advertising the hotel fortune-teller. Sri Lankans translate English into a more refined language. Tables have signs saying ‘Promised’ rather than ‘Reserved’. Activity organisers are called ‘Animators’.

A German woman called her toddler away from the water’s edge. A French couple sipped cocktails at a table. The luxury of this place was surreal compared to the monastery.

Sun drifted down toward hills across the other side of the valley. Clouds rose like temples lined with gold. Slipping noiselessly into the pool, Lydia and I were anointed in its turquoise cool.

Climbing out of the water refreshed, I shook my hair and sat on a lounger to admire the spectacle across the valley. There was no point getting my camera. No photo could live up to the reality. If any great artist – from one of the Ancient Greeks to Van Gogh – had seen this sunset, he would’ve put down his brushes and walked away.

Monks’ voices wafted from a nearby monastery, chanting in velvet unison. Giant rays of gold radiated from the sun and stretched across the sky.

Lydia stepped out of the pool, slipped into her Calvin Klein singlet top and walked toward me.

‘I can’t remember when I last watched a sunset,’ I said. ‘I mean really watched one.’

‘I suppose you could regard it as a form of meditation,’ she said, towelling her hair. ‘The beauty of every second melting into the next.’

I stood up and walked with her to the edge of the terrace to get a better view. As the sun sank into the clouds, majestic bands of colour flattened out to form red and gold brush strokes across the sky.

‘It is a magic country,’ I said, gazing across the hills silhouetted in the distance.

She nodded in silent agreement.

‘You’ll have to find another island to run away to now I’ve found you here,’ I said, only half joking.

Lydia smiled.

‘If I was your age, I’d have done the same,’ I added. ‘Especially if I could speak the language . . . except maybe not the nun thing.”

The scene was perfect now. I wanted everything to stop and stay frozen in this moment. This golden sky in the warm blanket of a tropic night with my beautiful, grown-up daughter in the land she’d chosen to be part of.

There’d been other times when I’d wanted to capture time – a summer when I was insanely in love; an autumn morning near a duck pond where baby Lydia toddled toward me, her arms open for me to catch her soft weight in mine.

But clinging to moments, or for that matter daughters, is futile. The trick is to appreciate their beauty, do your best by them and let them go as graciously as possible.

Life is always in movement. One beautiful moment can evolve into another, more precious form. Every second, even when coloured with sadness, has potential to be richer than the last.

The mastery is in awareness and trust; in having enough wisdom to step back to allow space for the new to unfold. To avoid becoming a Hungry Ghost mourning the past and always craving for the future.

The red and gold brush strokes slowly darkened to crimson. The monks’ voices enveloped us in their liquid harmonies.

‘I love it here,’ Lydia said, as we watched the hills turn a misty lilac. ‘But I’ve done enough.’

Her words left me momentarily speechless.

‘When I first started meditating, I thought if I tried hard for long enough something incredible would happen,’ she continued, her voice fractured with emotion. ‘You know, scientists have done tests and they’ve found physical changes in the brain when people approach higher levels of awareness. I thought I’d be able to achieve that. Maybe even find . . .’

The rest of her sentence hung in the air between us. Please don’t say it’s hard to explain .

‘Enlightenment?’ I asked quietly.

The Frenchman lit a cigarette and the German woman gathered her toddler in a towel.

A tear formed a crystalline river down Lydia’s cheek. Her pain was deep.

‘I just thought if I sat there long enough . . .’ she said, then started weeping.

I put my arm around her.

All the time I’d perceived her as being rebellious, Lydia had been focusing on the unattainable goal of perfection. It was the same determination she’d used to achieve high distinctions at university. Once she set her mind on something, her willpower was relentless.

I wondered what had instilled this drive and if it was to do with being born into a household grieving for an older brother she’d never met. While she was in no way a replacement for Sam, it’s true she would never have been born if he hadn’t been run over that day. Perhaps the darling girl really had burdened herself with the task of healing hearts.

Although I’d always made a point of not portraying Sam as a saint, maybe he’d seemed that way to her. Perhaps on a subconscious level she’d grown up measuring herself against an older brother who was untainted because he was dead.