Death is a difficult concept for seven-year-old Elsa. In fact, at the start of the novel Elsa doesn’t even realize that Granny is seriously ill because no one told her the truth about Granny’s cancer. This leaves her unprepared to process her emotions after Granny’s death. When Mum tries to empathize with Elsa by sharing her own grief, Elsa lashes out, saying, “You were always fighting! You’re probably just GLAD she’s dead!” (66). Later, Elsa admits that although she is angry that everyone lied to her about Granny’s illness, she’s mostly “angry with [Granny] for dying and disappearing from me” (146).

As Elsa matures throughout the novel, she realizes the toll that death takes on the living: “The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people left behind want to stop living” (220).

Elsa also struggles with the philosophical question of whether people who commit evil actions have the right to live at all. In her letter to Maud and Lennart, Granny apologizes for saving Sam’s life while also apologizing for regretting saving his life. Elsa asks Alf whether it is wrong to want people like Sam to die, and Alf answers that “it is human not to be sure” (291).