And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer

by Fredrik Backman

One of my idols once said, “The worst part about growing old is that I don’t get any ideas anymore.”

But it turned into a small tale of how I’m dealing with slowly losing the greatest minds I know, about missing someone who is still here, and how I wanted to explain it all to my children. I’m letting it go now, for what it’s worth. It’s about fear and love, and how they seem to go hand in hand most of the time. Most of all, it’s about time. While we still have it. Thank you for giving this story yours.

There’s a hospital room at the end of a life where someone, right in the middle of the floor, has pitched a green tent. A person wakes up inside it, breathless and afraid, not knowing where he is. A young man sitting next to him whispers: “Don’t be scared.”

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.

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.

He doesn’t want to admit to Grandpa that he doesn’t know where they are, because this has always been their game: Noah closes his eyes and Grandpa takes him somewhere they’ve never been before.

Grandpa knows he’ll always manage, because there are two things in life in which Grandpa’s faith is unwavering: mathematics and his grandson. A group of people calculated how to fly three men to the moon when Grandpa was young, and mathematics took them all the way there and back again. Numbers always lead people back.

Grandpa always calls him “Noahnoah” because he likes his grandson’s name twice as much as everyone else’s. He puts a hand in the boy’s hair, not ruffling it, just letting his fingers rest there. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Noahnoah.”

The boy recognizes the flowers, they’re Grandma’s, they smell like Christmas. For other children maybe that scent would be ginger biscuits and mulled wine, but if you’ve ever had a Grandma who loved things that grew then Christmas will always smell like hyacinths.

The boy opens his mouth to say something, but stops himself when he sees that. He sits quietly instead and does what Grandpa taught him to do if he gets lost: take in his surroundings, look for landmarks and clues. The bench is surrounded by trees, because Grandpa loves trees, because trees don’t give a damn what people think.

The girl is standing in front of him and smells like hyacinths, like she’s never been anywhere else. Her hair is old but the wind in it is new, and he still remembers what it felt like to fall in love; that’s the last memory to abandon him. Falling in love with her meant having no room in his own body. That was why he danced. “We had too little time,” he says. She shakes her head. “We had an eternity. Children and grandchildren.” “I only had you for the blink of an eye,” he says. She laughs. “You had me an entire lifetime. All of mine.” “That wasn’t enough.” She kisses his wrist; her chin rests in his fingers.

“I miss you, my love.” “I’m still with you, darling difficult you.” “But only in my memories now. Only here.” “That doesn’t matter. This was always my favorite part of you.”

“What do I say to Noah? How do I explain that I’m going to be leaving him even before I die?” She takes his jaw in her hands and kisses him.

Noah can see that Grandpa is ashamed the minute he says it’s hard to explain, because Grandpa never says that to Noah. All other adults do, Noah’s dad does it every day, but not Grandpa.

The boy is terrified now, but knows better than to let Grandpa see that, so he shouts: “Three point one four one!” “Five nine two,” Grandpa immediately replies. “Six five three,” the boy reels off. “Five eight nine.” Grandpa laughs.

Grandpa always says that the years will allow them to meet in the middle, when the boy’s thoughts expand and Grandpa’s contract.

But you taught Noah, you’ve taught him everything. He’s the one who loves math, like you.”

“It’s such a nice brain, Grandpa,” Noah says encouragingly, because Grandma always said that whenever Grandpa goes quiet, you just have to give him a compliment to get him going again. “That’s nice of you.” Grandpa smiles and dries his eyes with the back of his hand. “A bit messy though.” The boy grins. “It rained for a long time here when your Grandma died. I never quite got it back in order after that.”

Noah notices that the ground beneath the bench has become muddy, but the keys and shards of glass are still there. Beyond the square is the lake, and small waves roll over it, memories of boats already passed.

Whenever Noah was scared of sleeping, Grandpa would take out a string and tie one end around his arm and the other around the boy’s and promise that if Noah had nightmares he only had to pull on the string and Grandpa would wake up and bring him straight back to safety. Like a boat on a jetty. Grandpa kept his promise, every single time.

“What are those buildings, Grandpa?” “They’re archives. That’s where everything is kept. All the most important things.” “Like what?” “Everything we’ve done. All the photos and films and all your most unnecessary presents.”

Grandpa laughs, Noah too. They always give each other unnecessary presents. Grandpa gave Noah a plastic bag full of air for Christmas and Noah gave Grandpa a sandal. For his birthday, Noah gave Grandpa a piece of chocolate he’d already eaten. That was Grandpa’s favorite. “That’s a big building.” “It was a big piece of chocolate.”

“Is your brain ill?” “Who told you that?” “Dad.” Grandpa exhales through his nose. Nods. “We don’t know, really. We know so little about how the brain works. It’s like a fading star right now—do you remember what I taught you about that?” “When a star fades it takes a long time for us to realize, as long as it takes for the last of its light to reach Earth.”

“Those who hasten to live are in a hurry to miss,” she sometimes used to whisper to Noah, though he didn’t know what she meant before she was buried.

“When a brain fades it takes a long time for the body to realize. The human body has a tremendous work ethic; it’s a mathematical masterpiece, it’ll keep working until the very last light. Our brains are the most boundless equation, and once humanity solves it it’ll be more powerful than when we went to the moon. There’s no greater mystery in the universe than a human. Do

“The only time you’ve failed is if you don’t try once more.” “Exactly, Noahnoah, exactly. A great though...

“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.”

“Did you write that?” “Yes.” “What did your teacher say?” “She said I hadn’t understood the task.” “And what did you say?” “I said she hadn’t understood my answer.” “I love you,” Grandpa manages to say with closed eyes.

“When your feet touch the ground, I’ll be in space, my dear Noahnoah.” The boy concentrates on breathing in time with Grandpa. That’s another of their games. “Are we here to learn how to say good-bye, Grandpa?” he eventually asks. The old man scratches his chin, thinks for a long time. “Yes, Noahnoah. I’m afraid we are.”

“You get that from your Grandma.” Noah remembers. When his dad picked him up from Grandma and Grandpa’s in the evenings he wasn’t even allowed to say those words to her. “Don’t say it, Noah, don’t you dare say it to me! I get old when you leave me. Every wrinkle on my face is a good-bye from you,” she used to complain. And so he sang to her instead, and that made her laugh.

“The amount I love you, Noah,” she would tell him with her lips to his ear after she read fairy tales about elves and he was just about to fall asleep, “the sky will never be that big.” She wasn’t perfect, but she was his. The boy sang to her the night before she died. Her body stopped working before her brain did. For Grandpa it’s the opposite.

“I’m bad at good-byes,” says the boy. Grandpa’s lips reveal all his teeth when he smiles. “We’ll have plenty of chances to practice. You’ll be good at it. Almost all grown adults walk around full of regret over a good-bye they wish they’d been able to go back and say better. Our good-bye doesn’t have to be like that, you’ll be able to keep redoing it until it’s perfect. And once it’s perfect, that’s when your feet will touch the ground and I’ll be in space, and there won’t be anything to be afraid of.”

Noah holds the old man’s hand, the man who taught him to fish and to never be afraid of big thoughts and to look at the night’s sky and understand that it’s made of numbers. Mathematics has blessed the boy in that sense, because he’s no longer afraid of the thing almost everyone else is terrified of: infinity. Noah loves space because ...

“Why are you holding my hand so tight, Grandpa?” the boy whispers again. “Because all of this is disappearing, Noahnoah. And I want to keep hold of you longest of all.” The boy nods. Holds his grandpa’s hand tighter in return.