We went to a restaurant today.
My parents and I.
To celebrate the fact that they had been seeing each other
for 30 years last Monday.
It was an Italian restaurant. La Famiglia.
They´ve had Frank Sinatra as their guest once.
And they sure pride themselves upon it.
He ordered the entire restaurant for himself.

My grandmother was supposed to come along as well, but she
didn´t feel well enough.
Strong enough.
We tried a lot of persuasion of course. As we always do. But
judging from the place, it was probably just as well.
Or better. The chairs were a bit hard to sit on, and a bit
low. The surroundings were a bit messy. Nothing we couldn´t
deal with, but I don´t think she could have.
I know she couldn´t.

The world isn´t really cut out for old people. When I think
about my grandmother I realize there are so many things I
do that she never could. There are so many things I could
never explain to her.
But I try.
She knows I´m on the Internet a lot. And that I can use it
to meet people and to send mails to Kenya where my brother
is right now. At least that´s what she tells her friend when
they´re talking on the phone.

She was born in 1913. Enough to see the automobiles arrive
and multiply. And the airplanes. I bet she thought people
were getting themselves into a hurry.
She should see them now.
She used to own a foodstore when she was younger. You
know, the real thing. She owned it, she worked there and she
took care of things. The customer-to-owner contact.
She should see the fast-food restaurants.
There´s so much distance between the world she was born
into and the world she´ll leave.
In 1913 being old was also being respectable. I can´t see it
like that today. We have more old people, and older old
people than we have room for.


People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when...
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

That´s Ogden Nash, for you.


At times she says she´s tired of living. Of not being able to
do what she wants to do, or needs to do.
She used to help me get dressed when I was a kid. She
taught me how to tie my shoes. It´s the other way around
today.
She can´t get out much.
She lives at home, two floors above my basement.
Cooking and cleaning when we´re not at home. She´s a bit of
a pedant. We´ve had our disagreements about that. And she
wants me to eat,
more than I want to eat.
But she means well of course. I think that gets to be an
increasingly important thing as you grow older. You live
through those who come after you.
She grew happy with me when I graduated. Actually happier
than me I think. For me. And it is important to her what I
do with and in my life.
Maybe she´s in a bit of a hurry as well. She knows there
are a lot of things she won´t be able to see me do.
I know that as well. It makes me sad at times.
Maybe she wants as much of it as possible.

Well, she got to see her great-grandson (that is August)
anyway. It´s a nice picture. Four generations in one frame.
Immense difference.
She´s never touched a computer.
He´ll grow up with them all around him.
She´s breathed the air before the automobile.
He´ll see Earth from space.
She´s seen the things
he´ll read about.
He´ll remember her
I hope.


And I´m going back to the Island tomorrow.
When I most of all wish I could stay.

Because a friend of mine lost a part of her life today.
In a green room.
I´d be with her if I could.

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