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"I don’t believe in God, but I believe that things are extremely complicated, and her looking over me was as complicated as anything ever could be. But it was also incredibly simple. In my only life, she was my mom, and I was her son."

Oskar says this in Chapter 17 after he returns from digging up his dad’s grave. Throughout the novel, Oskar has doubted his mom’s love. He mistakes her concern that he makes copies of their house key and her frustration at his anger as signs of the conditionality of her love. He also believes that his mom’s friendship with Ron threatens his own place in the family because he’s grieving, and he believes his mom is not. With the revelation that his mom has been watching over him the entire quest, and now understanding that she has been letting him keep secrets from her as part of his grieving process, Oskar now understands that his mom’s love has never been conditional. She has never actually wanted him to stop grieving, as he had believed. In this quotation, Oskar accepts that his relationship with his mom may not be as easy as his relationship with his dad was, but she is still his mom, and she loves him.

This quotation also reveals a compromise Oskar has made within himself between complete pessimism and fully embracing the possibility of beauty. At the beginning of the novel, Oskar believes that beautiful things aren’t true, revealing that because his dad’s death shattered his illusion of security, he also believes that anything he previously felt secure in was also false. Here, Oskar realizes that accepting the truth that he may not ever know how his dad died doesn’t mean that everything he once found clear has to also be ambiguous. His mom, who throughout the novel doesn’t seem to understand his feelings, actually loves him unconditionally, and that in and of itself offers comfort and meaning. Whereas Thomas still finds comfort in dividing the world between something and nothing, Oskar has opened himself to the idea that things are complicated and they are also true. Even if there is no God, there is still love and family.

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