After four days of travel to and from the funeral, I’m back in Gothenburg. Playing chess in granmas room felt odd with her not present, and suddenly every medicin and picture on her dresser took on new meanings. The blanket I’d used as a backdrop for her portrait was on her bed, and our youngest half-brother was sitting on it, dispensing dubious chess advice.
Once in Sanok, seeing relatives I hadn’t seen for years was truly a memento mori moment — gray hairs, walking canes, half-serious comments of “it’s us next” over dinner and photo albums. The jovial uncle who used to tell dirty jokes now tells of the dirty jokes he told the nurses when recovering from surgery.
Below are all the pictures I took in chronological order. I don’t know what grandma would have thought of the video, but she might’ve asked if doing it hadn’t made me hungry, and perhaps I ought to have some dumplings.