Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close 2

In the chapter Why I'm Not Where You Are 9/11/03 Oskar's grandfather, who we learn is the mysterious renter in his grandmother's apartment writes a letter to the deceased Thomas, explaining why and how he returned to New York and to his family. He was gone Thomas' entire life, and didn't feel the urge to return until after his death. When he tried calling her at the airport on his return, he couldn't speak words so he tried communicating by pressing numbers. She couldn't understand, of course, but he told her everything, "...why I'd left, where I'd gone, how I'd found out about your death, why I'd come back, and what I needed to do with the time I had left. I told her because I wanted her to believe me and understand, and because I thought I owed it to her, and to myself, and to you, or was it just more selfishness?" (Foer 269). I feel he is very selfish indeed. He left because he was too afraid of loving and losing people again and still wasn't able to escape that. He mourns his son that he never met and yearns to be close to his grandson, Oskar. As the chapter progresses, the words become closer together until they eventually overlap and layer until it is illegible. He mentioned that he was soon to run out of paper so he must have begun writing over his words. This expresses the amount that he wants to communicate, to explain, to get out of his mind. And the fact that it becomes illegible mimics his inability to physically speak.