Another great short story by Fredrik Backman. Helped me understand dementia better.
One of my idols once said, “The worst part about growing old is that I don’t get any ideas anymore.” Those words have never quite left me since I first heard them, because this would be my greatest fear: imagination giving up before the body does. I guess I’m not alone in this. Humans are a strange breed in the way our fear of getting old seems to be even greater than our fear of dying. This is a story about memories and about letting go. It’s a love letter and a slow farewell between a man and his grandson, and between a dad and his boy.
Isn’t that the best of all life’s ages, an old man thinks as he looks at his grandchild. When a boy is just big enough to know how the world works but still young enough to refuse to accept it. Noah’s feet don’t touch the ground when his legs dangle over the edge of the bench, but his head reaches all the way to space, because he hasn’t been alive long enough to allow anyone to keep his thoughts on Earth. His grandpa is next to him and is incredibly old, of course, so old now that people have given up and no longer nag him to start acting like an adult. So old that it’s too late to grow up. It’s not so bad either, that age.
Grandpa always calls him “Noahnoah” because he likes his grandson’s name twice as much as everyone else’s.
Grandpa loves trees, because trees don’t give a damn what people think.
Grandpa gave him the dragon when he had just been born, because Grandma said it wasn’t suitable to give newborn children dragons as cuddly toys and Grandpa said he didn’t want a suitable grandson.
“Those who hasten to live are in a hurry to miss,”
“The only time you’ve failed is if you don’t try once more.”
Snow starts to fall in the square, the same way very small children cry, like it had barely started at first but soon like it would never end.
“Our teacher made us write a story about what we want to be when we’re big,” Noah tells him. “What did you write?” “I wrote that I wanted to concentrate on being little first.” “That’s a very good answer.” “Isn’t it? I would rather be old than a grown-up. All grown-ups are angry, it’s just children and old people who laugh.”
“Are we here to learn how to say good-bye?”
“I get old when you leave me. Every wrinkle on my face is a good-bye from you,”
“I’m angry because you think everything happened by chance but there are billions of people on this planet and I found you so if you’re saying I could just as well have found someone else then I can’t bear your bloody mathematics!”
“You were never easy, darling difficult sulky you, never diplomatic. You might even have been easy to dislike at times. But no one, absolutely no one, would dare tell me you were hard to love.”
That’s one good thing about forgetting things. You forget the things that hurt too.
“What does it feel like?” “Like constantly searching for something in your pockets. First you lose the small things, then it’s the big ones. It starts with keys and ends with people.”
“When you’ve forgotten a person, do you forget you’ve forgotten?” “No, sometimes I remember that I’ve forgotten. That’s the worst kind of forgetting.
First you forget where you’re going, then where you’ve been, and eventually where you are . . .
The lake glitters, their feet move from side to side, trouser legs fluttering in the wind. It smells like water and sunshine on the bench. Not everyone knows that water and sunshine have scents, but they do, you just have to get far enough away from all other smells to realize it. You have to be sitting still in a boat, relaxing so much that you have time to lie on your back and think.
“And we have to write essays all the time! The teacher wanted us to write what we thought the meaning of life was once.” “What did you write?” “Company.” Grandpa closes his eyes. “That’s the best answer I’ve heard.” “My teacher said I had to write a longer answer.” “So what did you do?” “I wrote: Company. And ice cream.” Grandpa spends a moment or two thinking that over. Then he asks: “What kind of ice cream?” Noah smiles. It’s nice to be understood.
Death is a slow drum. It counts every beat. We can’t haggle with it for more time.
“We lived an extraordinarily ordinary life.” “An ordinarily extraordinary life.”
Everything I am came from her, she was my Big Bang.”
‘Ted, we’re not going into space because we’re afraid of aliens. We’re going because we’re scared we’re alone. It’s an awfully big universe to be alone in.’
“And now Ted is a busy man,” he says. “But the universe gave you both Noah. He’s the bridge between you. That’s why we get the chance to spoil our grandchildren, because by doing that we’re apologizing to our children.” “And how do we stop our children from hating us for that?” “We can’t. That’s not our job.”
They stare at one another and breathe. Breathe and breathe and breathe. It’s a never-ending rage, being angry at the universe.