It hurts to remember the last part of her life. An old people’s home. Tastefully furnished. All the colors harmonizing, staff in white aprons and patient smiles. Yet as soon as the bell rang for breakfast, lunch or supper, the fifty old ladies immediately had to leave their rooms and troop to the dining room. Sit at table with people whose company they had not sought. Converse about events in which they had no interest. Find friends when loneliness and waiting were the only things they had in common.

The panic if she had to spend a day in bed; three days in bed meant being transferred to the nursing-home wing. There was a long waiting list for residents’ rooms, and seldom did anyone return from the nursing home. One day Grandma, too, was moved there.

“It is much better for the old one to have constant supervision, be able to stay with others in the same situation.”

Relatives who only want the best for their dear ones, and send them to an institution where one is no longer “I” but “we.”