Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

**CONTAINS SPOILERS!**

Oskar is nine years old, and his father died in 9/11. He left five messages on the answering machine, the last one was left four minutes before Oskar got home. I couldn't imagine that, imagine the fact that I was four minutes from having had the chance to talk to my father one last time. The only thing I would be able to do would be to sit with my mother, I would need her to tell me everything would be alright.

But Oskar is different. Oskar sees this as a need to protect his mom, it is his "most important raisons d'être", and this seems to be the biggest thing to protect her from. How does he do this? He stuffs away the home phone and buys a new one with his father's emergency money and re-does the answering message. He doesn't tell anyone, not even his grandma, one of the people he loves the most in the world. He feels that it is up to him to solve everything, to make everything alright, all on his own.

Oskar is... complex. He knows so much, it seems that his knowledge is endless, but yet he is still so naïve, he doesn't understand a lot, and he has a tight vocabulary, but he understands things like the plane crash, sex, death, and homelessness. Many may say that he is brave, in a sense, but he also just doesn't know enough to guide him, to tell him not to hide the phone, to tell his mom. You may think on the surface that you would want to know that your loved one had called you before they died and said that they loved you, but wouldn't it just hurt?

The fact that you weren't there to pick up the phone. Or if you had had a fight that morning. Or you hadn't said goodbye to them on your way to work. Maybe you never got to say "I love you". Perhaps you had tried to make sure they got to work on time. Wouldn't you feel that it was your fault that there would have been something that you could have done and really, there wasn't? And Oskar sees this, this naïve but wise nine year old understands that digging up old emotions won't benefit him or his mother.

Loss of a loved one is tough, especially when it is a freak accident or an attack, not being sick. When someone is sick, you can say goodbye, you can tell them you love them, and there is less reason to feel as if there was something you could have done or said. But people beat themselves up over it, they find it hard to let go of what they could have done to help, to save whoever died. And once you are able to steady yourself, think about it without always having to add to the "Reservoir of Tears", you must be getting better, you must be better, even if you don't always feel it. Because there will never be a 100% better, but you can always come close.