Stopping to Think

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman My rating: 5 of 5 stars This novella takes you inside the mind of a man and his memories, and walks you through the painful experience of losing those memories, only slipping out from time to time to help you feel how devastating this experience is not only for the man himself, but for his grandson and son as well. Backman’s prose is absolutely spot on. Delightful would be the wrong word given this subject matter, but the grace of his language is part of what makes the pain bearable. I lost my grandfather (on my mom’s side) almost a year ago, following several years of noticeable cognitive decline, and my own father has severe memory impairment following a stroke several years back. The pain I felt for ever character in this story was palpable. Devastating. And yet this book is so suffused with beauty. I suppose to give it a two word summary I would combine those two. And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer ...

As a preface: I had started this post on Friday. I halted it for a couple of reasons. I won't go into all of them, although the most important one I will. I believe of cycle of 24 hour news, with all the latest information available immediately on the internet is wonderful for gossip, and absolutely terrible for meaningful reflection on anything, but most especially tragedy. I woul venture to guess that most of you reading this felt shock, horror, outrage, or some other emotion of a particularily violent force when you turned on your TV/computer/radio Friday morning. I would also think it safe to assme that as coverage has slowly waned, so has emotion. To some extent this cannot be helped, things that are fresh in our minds are always going to be what bring forth the deepest emotions and reactions. But I fear the we are so overwhelmed with information that when something truly of weight like this happens, we are quick to forget, turn the page, and go do something different. And so ...

The title describes exactly what I want to do.  Two years ago today a young man who has left an undeniable mark on many lives, was taken home by his Heavenly Father.  Why God decided Alex needed to go so soon, I honestly have no idea.  But the impact he made and the lives he touched in his short time here, is undeniable. Now I realize, as I hope you do, that Facebook is a poor measure of reality.  But I could not help but noticed as I pulled up my home page today, the number of statuses reading something to the affect of  "Alex, we love and miss you, RIP."  Obviously everyone put their own twist and touch on it, but that was the sentiment.  How does one person touch so many? Part of it was simply a function of his personality.  The dude was a show-off.  And he was good at it.  He loved attention, he loved the spotlight, and more than that, he loved to make people laugh and have fun.   Making people smile was something Alex absol...