“And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer”

It’s a fair chance that I have an unfair advantage over most participants – for (1) I am a grandfather
and also (2) enjoyed the company of my grandson, before he grew up to treat me as just another
relative.

The author too has an advantage albeit an unfortunate one. He continues to suffer from depression
and anxiety, an affliction he developed in his early twenties. His personal tragedy in a sad manner, is
to our advantage as we get to read a cracker of a novella. When I was in my 20’s there was another
great novella “Love Story” and both the book and the film were recognized as classics in the romance
genre.

This ones genre is far, far away from romance, but equally thought provoking. The fear of impending
Alzheimer’s sits deep in the psyche of every urban male above the age of 65 (oddly the females are
not so concerned), and like the other fear “death”, both raise their heads at odd times, for brief
moments nearly every day. A fair amount of pathos is normally lost in a translation, but the English
translation too is gripping in its portrayal of the mind of one suffering from this degenerative,
debilating, complex, and as yet, incurable disease. Fredrick makes a bold foray (using his own past
and current ailments) to peer inside a brain afflicted by Alzheimer’s. It is all his imagination for it is
impossible for a diseased person to share his state of mind. The forty pages turned by itself and an
hour later, I was jolted back to the present.

Backman is a master of the simile and the one liner. Indulging on the words “round square” in the
early pages, I enjoyed many a one liner, and my favourite five are:

“The only time you fail is when you don’t try once more” (as an aside I would strongly
recommend a movie currently in the theatres titled “12th Fail”)

“All grown up people are angry. It’s the young and the old people who laugh”

“Every single wrinkle is a good bye from you”

“It’s an ordinarily extraordinary life”

“She could get lost in an elevator”

To my friends in their twenties, thirties and forties, permit me to share a few takeaways. I am not
restricting these takeaways to Alzheimer’s. The misfortune that falls on the caretakers if far far more
than the afflicted. But they could find some solace in the midst of their misfortunate if they could
have some happy recollections of

Say…Having been kind and understanding of their elders when the elders were still in a
communicative phase. Otherwise, every single quarrel, misunderstanding, years of silence and
ignoring them will haunt them till their very end.

Or Say...Having recognized that grandparents are an essential link in a Childs chain of existence. As
the author mentions a grandchild is a bridge between a father and son. As Fredrick analyses, the
grandfathers’ overwhelming love is a “making up “for the lack of love for his own children.

Or say... both spouses realizing that in laws could be a major resource for solace to either of them
and rather that shun their presence and stay cities away, if they could maintain a health regular
physical and emotional connect and avoid the guilt of acceding to the in laws desire to move to an
old age home.
And finally…if each married man and woman could develop a “skill” to minimise hurt to the other.
The sentence “They never stopped arguing and they never slept apart” leapt out the page as if
addressed to each of us

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7DEC23