Some excerpts that move me…

“The square got smaller again overnight.”

He always wants to know everything about school, but not like other adults, who only want to know if Noah is behaving.  Grandpa wants to know if the school is behaving.  It hardly ever is.   “Our teacher made us write a story about what we want to be when we are 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.

Not everyone knows that water and sunshine have scents, but they do, you just have to get far enough away from all the other smells to realize it.

[Minds]  One of them is getting bigger and one of them is getting smaller, the years allow them to meet in the middle.

“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.”  Grandpa closes his eyes.  “That’s the best answer I’ve heard.”  “My teacher said I had to write a longer answer.”  “So what sis you do?”  “I wrote Company .  And ice cream.”  Grandpa spends a moment or two thinking that over.  Then he asks:  “What kind of ice cream?”  Noah smiles.  It’s nice to be understood.

…even the snow was happy that morning, falling soap-bubble light and landing on cold cheeks as though the flakes were gently trying to wake someone they loved.

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

“I miss the dawn.  The way it stamped its feet at the end of the water, increasingly frustrated and impatient, until there was no more holding back the sun.

‘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 is still here.” [Alzheimer]

“…That’s why we get the chance to spoil our grandchildren, because by doing that we’re apologizing to our children.”

It’s never too late to ask [your child] about something [they] love.