Grandmother at 97

I still got a grandmother. She lives on an island called Utsira. Some 200 miles southwest of where I live now.
The island is small, situated far out at the North Sea.
My grandmother has reached 97.
It`s a long time since I saw her. Too long. But this time I could sit alongside her at the old peoples house.
Her hands and face is like the landscape of the island. But she still got her sparkling eyes.
She gets easily confused about who is who, when she sees her grandchildren and grandgrandchildren. Especially when she meets modern families where mothers and fathers have childrens from other, divorced families.
But she remembered me. Maybe because I got my name from her late husband. And maybe because we found ourselves connected, sonehow.
-Is it really you, she wondered.

My grandmother became a widow in 1966.
Since then she lived alone in her house.
In stormy winther days she went to the beach to pick up drifted firewood.
In the summer time she joyfully met her children and grandchildren, who paid her a holliday visit.
It has been very difficult for her to accept that she had to move to the old peoples house.
-I guess I`ll be staying here for another day og two, until i go back home, she said.
I said nothing. Knowing that this will never happen.

I remember once I was a teenager, when I had paid her a visit. When I was leaving her, I didn`t give her a hug. I could see she wanted it. But I wanted to show my independence as a grown up teenager.
Now, over twenty years later I did give her a hug. When I finally had to leave her again.