When the Cranes Fly South [en]

This novel by Lisa Ridzén, who is from Sweden, I believe, was nice but not what I needed when I listened to it. It tells the story of Bo, an old man whose wife is in a home for people with dementia, and he’s getting older and weaker himself. His son, Hans, is constantly worried about him, and a number of caretakers visit Bo throughout the day to help him eat and take a shower and make sure he’s OK.

Bo has a dog, Sixten, whom he loves and takes out a few times a day, but Hans is worried because he believes Sixten needs longer walks and Bo can no longer take care of him properly, so he wants to take Sixten away. Of course, Bo is outraged. He feels that no one cares what he wants and thinks anymore, that everyone is making decisions for him as if he were a child.

Bo remembers his old life, as a child with a difficult father, as a husband with a loving wife, with a younger Hans, with his granddaughter whom he loves dearly, and with his best friend, with whom he often talks on the phone.

I was on my way to work when I was listening to the part when Hans takes Sixten away from Bo, and I was enraged! This seemed so cruel, so unfair, so stupid, since everyone knows how important pets are for older people, and Sixten was Bo’s only companion throughout the long days and nights, and I was devastated, too! And that’s when I suddenly remembered that I did the same thing to my mom! It knocked the wind out of me! I had to stop driving because I was so horrified to remember that I had taken my mom’s cat away from her a few weeks before I forced my mom into a psychiatric hospital! My mom loved her cat, she took her outside on a long string for hours so all the neighbourhood kids could play with her, she was my mom’s companion for so many long days and nights… Yet on the phone, for months, I had started worrying about the cat’s wellbeing because my mom would tell me things like, « I put her on the balcony all day because she wanted to play and I was busy doing other things, » or « I put the litter box on the balcony because it was too stinky » (meaning that the cat no longer had access to it), etc. Also, when I visited my mom, I noticed that she didn’t remember the difference between cat litter and cat food and sometimes would put food in the litter box and vice versa. For weeks, my mom went back and forth between « yes, take her, I can’t take care of her » and « no, please, don’t take her away from me, I’d be so sad! » I, too, was so cruel to my mom, then. Life, too, has been so cruel and unfair!

Anyway, I couldn’t stop crying once I realized that. I cried and cried and cried. Damn life!