MY NAN WAS an active, outgoing, engaged senior citizen. She gardened, kneeling on a foam pad to protect the skin of her knees and her fragile bones, honeycombed with osteoporosis. She read books, the newspaper, did the crosswords. She looked after her neighbours’ children for an afternoon here and there, keeping those exuberant little minds occupied while their mothers and fathers worked or shopped or did the frantic tasks that parents squeeze into their tiny slices of child-free time.

She lent an ear – and sometimes a shoulder – to her granddaughter, listening patiently to my love woes, and offering such wise insights that I was sometimes taken aback by her modernity.