Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers March 2026
1000 origami cranes for healing, story by Lauren Roche.
This short piece refers to the practice of Senbazuru (千羽鶴). The folding of 1000 origami cranes traditionally confers a blessing of health, longevity or peace. I have recently gifted a close relative 1000 cranes, folded with loving mindfulness as she journeys with cancer.
1 – 500
Make the first hundred from printouts of your secret internet searches. Symptoms are always worse in the dead of night, as is the fear that your body has betrayed you. Fold the papers into the prescribed shape. Your first birds may be misshapen, but you’ll soon be able to make them without thinking.
Make the second hundred from the words you’ll use to talk to your GP. You’ll be cautious but clear enough. You practise the words in front of the mirror. ‘I think I might have cancer’. Words you hoped never to say.
The material for the third hundred will come from blood test, ultrasound and X-ray forms. You are now in the system. You’ll need patience. A new language awaits you. Make lists of the words, and fold them into tiny, coloured birds.
The fourth one hundred are messages from friends and family. There will be cards, emails, voice messages, thoughts and prayers. Most will not blame you for your predicament, but they will offer advice. ‘If you’d just stop eating meat. Drink lemon juice and water instead of gin. Take ivermectin. My hairdresser’s cousin’s boyfriend cured himself of everything on a carnivore diet.’
Fold all unsolicited advice alongside your reactions, crease the edges tightly, and let your nimble fingers turn them into tiny promise birds. Everyone means well, even though you sometimes wish they’d zip it.
By the time you get to five hundred origami cranes, any treatment will have started. Make your next hundred from the pages of the novels you tried to distract yourself with while your body was filled with chemotherapy drugs. Maybe weave in a few strands of merino unravelled from the cap you wear to cover your thinning locks. It would not be wrong to make a few from flypapers. Hang them in your doorways, just to see if they will trap Death in the act of entering.
Your 500th bird!
Halfway there.
Your achievement is astounding. Rest here a while. Catch your breath.
Watch the jewel-bright clouds outside your western window.
Moisturise your skin.
Let a volunteer read to you.
Do something that goes totally against all advice. Enjoy your fierce rebellion
The second 500.
The sixth one hundred marks a turning point. Fashion these from the Lotto tickets that never had the right numbers. It’s all about the numbers. White counts, tumour markers, and doses given. Don’t worry about the traitorous Lotto fairy. More money will not help you. The very rich also die, just in higher thread-count bed sheets.
The seventh one hundred origami cranes should be bright and cheerful. No words, no numbers, just joyful patterns. Rainbows, flowers, clouds, the deep bruising sea. Your fingers are not so nimble now. Neuropathy makes them clumsy and weak, so the folds you make must be deliberate and contemplative. Use bigger paper if you need to. No one else is measuring this one activity of yours.
The eighth hundred is fashioned from lists of instructions. Just in case. Who will care for your dog if you don’t recover? Who will call your father on his birthday? Who gets the task of sorting through your spare room? How many of your possessions will the Hospice shop want? Add these cranes to the piles you have accumulated. Let their colours revive you a little. See how much you have conquered.
The ninth one hundred. Last will and testament – in case. Do not resuscitate order – yes or no? Thoughts about the afterlife. Examinations of faith. Write out your fears. Scrutinise the words. Fold them, crease them, turn them into winged messengers.
Keep the box of cranes by your bed or chair. Take comfort from them.
The last one hundred is folded from old airline tickets, floor-stub receipts from the downtown ferry terminal, and photocopies of your passport and birth certificate. They come from brochures about the place you want to travel to if your treatment is successful. The place you could live in, eternally. You’ve gathered the documents for your last big journey. Carefully, methodically folded. Each crane has its beak aligned perfectly with its tail. Write an encouraging word on each wing.
Stop at 999. Take a breath. This is the threshold.
The very last crane could be a gift for the Ferryman. Just in case.
While you cannot bribe Charon, you can certainly make his day.
He likes Tim Tams, I hear.
The biscuit wrapper will feel impossible to fold but keep at it.
It will be your final gift.
© Lauren Roche
I am 64, and the author of Bent Not Broken, Life on the Line, Mila and the Bone Man, and Julia Eichardt; A Life of Grit and Grace.
In 2019, following a debilitating spinal cord injury, I retired as a medical doctor and had to reimagine my working life. This opened up the opportunity for me to pursue my other love: writing.
In 2020, I completed the Northtec Diploma in Advanced Applied Writing. In 2021, I graduated from AUT with a Master’s in Creative Writing.
My partner Graham and I share our Tūtūkākā home with Bill, the half Manx cat, and Lucy Jordan, a significantly entitled and over-capitalised Bichon Frise. I am currently working on four new MSS, three of them historical fiction. I am not a trained historian, but I enjoy spending hours immersed in and imagining the past.