“i’ve been feeling so very low. it feels like it’s never going to be possible to ever feel happy again, buoyantly happy, the kind of happiness i used to know, in which the thought of death was quite absent. i think that from now on any happiness i feel will be tinged with death. maybe for others it’s always been like that and i’ve just been naïve. but happiness for me has always been so straightforward. being happy in that way feels like not even being in the world anymore.”

a heartbreaking narration into the author’s final days with her dying husband. i cannot even begin to explain the pain i felt as a reader let alone the ørstavik who experienced it firsthand. the setting itself feels fresh to our recent tragedy — the pandemic — that all of us can find ourselves relating to the author’s questions into death, grief and the process of moving on. it’ll all becomes so blurred when you start thinking of the future while also trying to stay in the very present. eager to cherish the moments you have left with the one you love while also contemplating life and what it would be once a part of you — your soulmate, life partner — becomes perpetually gone. a short and yet very impactful read