We can busy ourselves with living or with dying
A Man Called Ove“We can busy ourselves with living or with dying” is Sonja’s brief declaration of resolve after the bus accident. Spoken to Ove as she asks to begin physiotherapy, it recasts moving forward not as an assurance that grief will pass, but as something they must choose to do together.
The Words in Context
The accident has left Sonja with lasting physical impairment, and the couple is also grieving the child they will not have. Ove carries a particular guilt: he believes he should have remained beside Sonja at the moment of the accident. Against that loss and self-reproach, Sonja asks for physiotherapy. When Ove reacts as if her pain were his own, she leans her head against his chest and tells him they have to move on.
Meaning and Effect
The phrase places living and dying in parallel as things that can occupy a person’s days. Its force lies in the active verb: Sonja does not promise that recovery will be easy or that sorrow is over; she proposes that they give themselves something to do. Her decision to start physiotherapy makes the appeal concrete, while her tenderness toward Ove makes it a shared direction rather than an order addressed only to herself.
Narrative Significance
The narration presents the words as the turning point from the couple’s immediate despair toward the months of life that follow. Back in Sweden, Ove encounters municipal officials who have time to explain paperwork but not to discuss the measures Sonja needs to improve. The contrast sharpens the phrase’s practical meaning: moving forward will require more than formal procedures, and the couple’s next steps begin with Sonja’s initiative and Ove’s presence.
