Chapter 14

     These chapters are getting harder and harder to describe with the justice and meaning they deserve.  This chapter was so moving in its description of Oskar's grandfather, also named Thomas Schell, coming back into Oskar's grandmother's life, and later, into Oskar's. 
     Oskar's grandmother is a complicated character.  One the one hand, you want to call her a saint because of everything she has been through and continues to go through with Thomas Schell, Sr. and coming from Dresden and the bombing.  On the other hand, she seems to have a resigned sadness about her that she seems to mask as a form of being content but inside I think she really struggles to stay strong.  She is a brave and courageous woman that if she were real, I would love to meet and have a long conversation with. 
     Thomas Schell Sr., formally known as the old man, is narrating this chapter, which goes in and out of overlapping with Oskar's chapter previous to this one.  They both take the time to explain where they are coming from, not necessarily to each other yet, and recap their initial meeting with different understandings because Thomas Sr. knows he is meeting his grandson for the first time and Oskar is meeting a stranger and confiding in that stranger because he cannot find his grandmother.  It makes for a very interesting dynamic. 

"...that night was the first time your mother and I made love since I returned, and the last time we ever made love, it didn't feel like the last time, I'd kissed Anna for the last time, seen my parents for the last time, spoken for the last time, why didn't I learn to treat everything as if it was the last time, my greatest regret is how much I believed in the future" (page 281).

"I tried to learn about him as he tried to learn about you, he was trying to find you, just as you'd tried to find me, it broke my heart into more pieces that my heart was made of..." (page 279).

"...she led me to the coat closet, which faces the living room, she went in with me, we were in there all day, although she knew he wouldn't come until the afternoon, it was too small, we needed more space between us, we needed Nothing Places, she said, 'This is what it's felt like, except you weren't here'" (page 276).

REALIZATION:
     Thomas Schell Sr. has the same name as his son, and when he came back to New York he asked Oskar's Grandmother if he could sculpt her again.  When she agreed, he went to the craft store to buy some clay and ended up writing his name on all the pen, marker, etc. paper test pads...a.k.a. that is what Oskar saw when he went to the craft store in search of what "Black" meant on the envelope!  He saw his grandfather's name, not meaning to be his father's...what an interesting twist...