A Time For Everything

My beautiful Grandma as a late teen or very young 20-something woman.

Last month, I shared that my grandmother passed away at the age of 98. She was born in August of 1927.

Just think about what the world was like in 1927:

• No TV in most homes
• Radio as the primary connection to the world
• Handwritten letters as the norm
• Maybe there was a telephone in her home—maybe there wasn’t
• The effects of the U.S. stock market crash would reach Denmark in the early 1930s

Now consider the changes in how we live that she experienced over the course of her life:

• Basic medicine evolving into modern healthcare
• Limited mobility expanding into mass travel
• Televisions and telephones becoming standard in most homes
• A cash-based economy growing into structured banking systems
• Cars becoming common rather than rare

And yet, despite all of that change, there’s a line where her lived experience likely stopped keeping pace with the world.

As I mentioned last month, we communicated by letter. She lived in a care facility for years, and I don’t know that she ever used a computer or owned a cellphone. When I wrote to her, I never mentioned things like online shopping—I had no idea if she would even know what “online” meant.

AI would have been completely inconceivable to her.

The other thing that makes this all the more striking to me is that Denmark is now one of the most aggressively digitized countries in the world. Government communication, healthcare, and banking are all tied to digital ID systems and email. But I suspect that entire layer of life was handled for her by others—especially once she lost her sight.

She lived through nearly a century of change—and still ended her life just outside the world we now take for granted.

May she rest in peace.

From left to right:

Jen, Sonshine, my mom, my Darling Daughter,

Grandma in Denmark, and the Brown-Eyed Girl

My dear Grandma in Denmark was 98 years old. That bodes well for me.

On the other hand, Grandma had been in assisted living for a couple of decades and in the hospice wing of that facility for several years.

I got a message from my aunt a few weeks ago, who apparently keeps tabs on my grandma even though they aren't blood related. The aunt is my mom's half-sister on her dad's side. Grandma and my mom's dad divorced before I was born. Both my mom's parents remarried and had other children.

Anyway, my aunt must have visited Grandma every so often at least, and she was kind enough to send me periodic updates.

A few weeks ago she shared that my grandma had stopped eating and was in a lot of pain. I hope the hospice team was able to get that under control quickly and make her comfortable.

Yesterday I learned that Grandma has passed away.

For the last few weeks I’ve been living in that odd limbo, waiting for word—either that she was somehow feeling better, or that she had reached the end of a very long life.

You see, my grandma lived in Denmark. I hadn’t seen her in around twenty-eight years, when she last came to America to visit. Sonshine was three years old or so. (See picture above with a very young Jen!) I visited / lived with her and the man I called and considered Grandad in Denmark when I was in second grade, so we did have a real relationship once. But in the decades since, it’s mostly been through letters, me keeping her updated on my life.

As long-time readers know, sending letters to my grandma has been an ongoing goal—especially the last decade or so. Now you know why. I’m not sure if her son (my uncle) visited much, and I don’t know how often my aunt was able to stop by. Since my mom died a few years ago, I was the last contact she had with this line of the family.

My girls don’t really know her. The Brown-Eyed Girl “met” her when she was a year old and again when she was ten-ish. Darling Daughter was eight-ish and says she has no memories of that visit.

So while I’m sad she’s gone, the truth is the change to my everyday life will be small. Still, she was my grandma, and for many years we kept in touch the old-fashioned way—through letters crossing the ocean. I’m grateful we had that.