My 87-Year-Old Grandma and the Internet: A Love Story

I regularly chat with my grandma on Telegram. She’s 87. Lately she’s been saying more often that what she wants most is to peacefully pass away. And I completely understand her.

She’s lonely. It’s hard to find people she’d actually enjoy talking to. I’m 38 and I barely find interesting people myself. Imagine what it’s like at 90? Most of your friends are already gone. Those who survived have probably lost their minds. You’re mainly left with people you would never have befriended even in your youth.

Kids and grandkids won’t visit every day. Maybe once or twice a week.

Plus her health is basically gone. Moving around the house is hard. You can’t really go for walks, hang out, or even shop without it being a whole adventure.

The biggest joy for her? The internet. She ignored computers for quite a while, even though her grandkids constantly played on them at her place. About five years ago she started using one herself: she can do stuff in Word, browses the internet on her own, handles YouTube and Instagram no problem, downloads videos, saves pictures to her desktop. She’s got it all organized perfectly.

It’s literally a breath of fresh air and an endless source of joy. On Telegram she chats with relatives, they send each other bunnies on rainbow backgrounds 😃

Just like me back in 2008…