The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter and bread with only the scent of jam spread on top of it. It was the best time of her life.

Not knowing it would be our last (or perhaps subconsciously fully knowing it) heart to heart, the last meaningful conversation I had with my grandmother began with us working on her “Grandmother’s Memories” book. With her now 92 years old and nearly blind, this activity consisted of me reading her the questions, her orally relating her responses and me scribbling frantically to keep up with her still very spry mind.

Somehow, the storytelling drifted over to memories of the past, when I would spend every Saturday night with her and my grandfather in their tiny spare bedroom in the trailer they called home on the weekends.

“Those are the days I wish I could go back to,” she declared.

Knowing her to be anything but the melancholic or reminiscent type, I eyed her suspiciously while I contemplated the idea of her wished-for time travel.

“I’m not sure I’d want to go that far back,” I answered honestly. After all, my age still numbered in the single digits back then. If I were going to break the time barrier with my beloved grandmother, I wanted it to be a period during which the core of my being was fully formed.

Two months later, as she lay on her deathbed, I second (and third and fourth) thought that response. Suddenly, there was something highly appealing about going back to a place and time when you knew you were over-loved and were oblivious to everything else.

Unfortunately, wish as we might, this life doesn’t afford us the ability to go back, but even if just for a moment, “I wish we could too, Nan. It was the best time of my life.”