My grandmother Olga

Today my brother and sister took my only living grandmother, Olga Lobao Ribeiro, to a nursing home.  This once-independent, almost indomitable, and today mostly wild woman, accepted her new home without a fight.  It was almost as if she had been waiting for this moment of surrender her entire life.  My family (and I - even though I am thousands of miles away) will be calling in the antique dealers to evaluate her estate.  Everything will be sold.  And there will be nothing material of my grandmother left for us or me.  She will enter a new stage of her life in her new home, surrounded by old intellectuals and creative types who have too much wisdom and anxiety over what's coming up next.  But for us, next is here.  What was my grandmother -what was left of her material life - will be disposed of without a funeral.  And so as we watch and orchestrate, the last living grandparent will become a ghost of herself.