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.

Grandpa knows he’ll always manage, because there are two things in life in which Grandpa’s faith is unwavering: mathematics and his grandson.

Grandpa always calls him “Noahnoah” because he likes his grandson’s name twice as much as everyone else’s.

ooh this is so sweet

Falling in love with her meant having no room in his own body.

“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. “No.”

hey i’m gonna cry (I’m at work)

“But only in my memories now. Only here.” “That doesn’t matter. This was always my favorite part of you.”

“Darling difficult husband, you should explain this to our grandson the way you’ve always explained everything to him: as though he was smarter than you.”

“Those who hasten to live are in a hurry to miss,”

“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.”

“When your feet touch the ground, I’ll be in space, my dear Noahnoah.”

“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.

“I didn’t care why you said yes. Just that you stayed.”

I didn't know this was gonna be the saddest love story I've ever read

“You never became ordinary to me, my love. You were electric shocks and fire.”

ahhhhh (in a gut wrenching kind of way)

“Do you remember what you said, when we first fell in love, that sleeping was a torment?” “Yes. Because we couldn’t share our sleep. Every morning when I blinked awake, the seconds before I knew where I was were unbearable. Until I knew where you were.”

make men emotional again

“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.”

Everything I am came from her, she was my Big Bang.”

“How did you fall in love with her?” the boy asks. Grandpa’s hands land with one palm on his own knee and one on the boy’s. “She got lost in my heart, I think. Couldn’t find her way out. Your grandma always had a terrible sense of direction. She could get lost on an escalator.”

me honestly

“Noahnoah, promise me something, one very last thing: once your good-bye is perfect, you have to leave me and not look back. Live your life. It’s an awful thing to miss someone who’s still here.”

We’re going because we’re scared we’re alone. It’s an awfully big universe to be alone in.’ ”

Tedted.”

STOP I'LL CRY