And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer

by Fredrik Backman

“The worst part about growing old is that I don’t get any ideas anymore.”

Falling in love with her meant having no room in his own body. That was why he danced.

Why is this is beautiful but also sad at the same time 😭

“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.

These deserve an eternity 😭

“You had me an entire lifetime. All of mine.” “That wasn’t enough.” She kisses his wrist; her chi...

“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.”

They are so precious 🥺❤️‍🩹

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

“It rained for a long time here when your Grandma died. I never quite got it back in order after that.”

That's too much pain 😭

“What’s on those pieces of paper?” the boy asks. “Those are all my ideas,” Grandpa replies. “They’re blowing away.” “They’ve been doing that for a long time.”

“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.

“The only time you’ve failed is if you don’t try once more.” “Exactly, Noahnoah, exactly. A great thought can never be kept on Earth.”

“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.”

They both are so adorable and precious ❤️‍🩹

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

pain heartbreaking gut wrenching pain 😭

“My memories are running away from me, my love, like when you try to separate oil and water. I’m constantly reading a book with a missing page, and it’s always the most important one.”

“I know, I know you’re afraid,” she answers and brushes her lips against his cheek. “Where is this road taking us?” “Home,” she replies.

For more than half a century they belonged to one another. She detested the same characteristics in him that last day as she had the first time she saw him under that tree, and still adored all the others.

“When you looked straight at me when I was seventy I fell just as hard as I did when I was sixteen.” She smiles. His fingertips touch the skin above her collarbone. “You never became ordinary to me, my love. You were electric shocks and fire.”

“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!”

he said that he loved her. It was the first time. They never stopped arguing and they never slept apart; he spent an entire working life calculating probabilities and she was the most improbable person he ever met. She turned him upside-down.

Where do i find a man like him 😭

“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.”

“I know that the way home is getting longer and longer every morning. But I loved you because your brain, your world, was always bigger than everyone else’s. There’s still a lot of it left.”

“Darling stubborn you. I know you never believed in life after death. But you should know that I’m dearly, dearly, dearly hoping that you’re wrong.”

“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.”

sometimes it feels like having fallen asleep on a sofa while it’s still light and then suddenly being woken up once it’s dark; it takes me a few seconds to remember where I am. I’m in space for a few moments, have to blink and rub my eyes and let my brain take a couple of extra steps to remember who I am and where I am. To get home. That’s the road that’s getting longer and longer every morning, the way home from space. I’m sailing on a big calm lake, Noahnoah.”

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. Lakes and thoughts have that in common, they take time.

Grandpa leans toward Noah and breathes out like people do at the start of a long sleep; one of them is getting bigger and one of them is getting smaller, the years allow them to meet in the middle.

“I always knew who I was with you. You were my shortcut,” Grandpa confides. “Even though I never had any sense of direction.” She laughs.

“Death isn’t fair.” “No, death is a slow drum. It counts every beat. We can’t haggle with it for more time.”

“I miss all our most ordinary things. Breakfast on the veranda. Weeds in the flower beds.”

“We lived an extraordinarily ordinary life.” “An ordinarily extraordinary life.”

She laughs. Old eyes, new sunlight, and he still remembers how it felt to fall in love. The rain hasn’t arrived yet. They dance on the shortcut until darkness falls.

She was a force of nature. Everything I am came from her, she was my Big Bang.”

“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.”

“Never in my life have I asked myself how I fell in love with her, Noahnoah. Only the other way around.”

When he and Grandpa go fishing they sometimes lie in the bottom of the boat with their eyes closed for hours without saying a word to one another. When Grandma was here she always stayed at home, and if anyone asked where her husband and grandson were she always said, “Space.” It belongs to them.

“If I forget the funeral I’ll forget why I can’t ever forget her.”

“I’ll tell you about her when you forget, Grandpa. First thing every morning, first of all I’ll tell you about her.” Grandpa squeezes his arm. “Tell me that we danced, Noahnoah. Tell me that that’s what it’s like to fall in love, like you don’t have room for yourself in your own feet.”

“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.”

“But one good thing with your brain being sick is that you’re going to be really good at keeping secrets. That’s a good thing if you’re a grandpa.”

“And I don’t think you need to be scared of forgetting me,” the boy says after a moment’s consideration.

if you forget me then you’ll just get the chance to get to know me again. And you’ll like that, because I’m actually a pretty cool person to get to know.”

“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.”

“Darling obstinate you. It’s never too late to ask your son about something he loves.”

Then the rain starts to fall, and the last thing he shouts to her is that he also hopes he’s wrong. Dearly, dearly, dearly hopes. That she’ll argue with him in Heaven.

“Yeah. The way home’s getting longer and longer every morning now.” The father squats down and hugs him.

“I don’t know who you are,” he whispers. The young man strokes his forearm. “I’m Noah. You’re my grandpa. You taught me to cycle on the road outside your house and you loved my grandma so much that there wasn’t room for you in your own feet. She hated coriander but put up with you. You swore you would never stop smoking but you did when you became a father. You’ve been to space, because you’re a born adventurer, and once you went to your doctor and said, ‘Doctor, doctor! I’ve broken my arm in two places!’ and then the doctor told you that you should really stop going there.”

Their relationship is everything 🥺

“We’re inside the tent we used to sleep in by the lake, Grandpa, do you remember? If you tie this string around your wrist you can keep hold of the balloon when you fall asleep, and when you get scared you just need to yank it and I’ll pull you back. Every time.”

“You look different, Noahnoah. How is school? Are the teachers better now?” “Yes, Grandpa, the teachers are better. I’m one of them now. The teachers are great now.”

THEY HAVE ALL MY HEART