My great-great-aunt Olive was born in 1914, and her birthday is in June. That means she’s 100.

Perhaps the thing I regret most about being in East Africa for most of this past year was missing her birthday party. I tried to make up for it on Sunday.

I drove down to her apartment in South St. Paul. She lives in a complex for the elderly, but not assisted living. I walked into a spacious, Christmas-decorated entryway that was warm in style and temperature. I then climbed the staircase to her second floor apartment. I entered a space of off whites with crocheted afghans and pillows in the living room and figurines on the windowsills. Ollie sat comfortably on one of her easy chairs. She looks good for 100.

After the usual welcomes, come ins, and nice to see yous, I presented a gift of a handkerchief from a church in Iringa, Tanzania which had printed upon it  a bible verse in Swahili.

Only I had forgotten the translation.

“Ollie, do you have a bible?” I asked.

“Hm?”

“Do you have a bible?”

“Oh yes,” she said excitedly in her old lady voice. “Let me show you something.”

So she hopped up from her chair and walked to her bedroom. She brought out a 60-year-old bible that had been given to her late son.

And I got busy looking up the verse on the handkerchief.

While I paged for the translation, Olive’s other company filled the void. I wasn’t the only one to visit this day. Her 53-year-old granddaughter was there. So was granddaughter’s son, Olive’s 28-year-old great-grandson. Finally, he had his daughter there bouncing around as two-year-olds do. She, of course, was Olive’s great-great-grandchild.

Grandma Ollie, as they call her, complemented her great-great-granddaughter’s shoes.

“Aren’t those pretty?” she said to her little princess, Ava.

There’s a lot one can consider when seeing a scene like this: five generations; the sea of change that has taken place in the world over the last 100 years, and so the vast differences in life experiences for these two; yet also the similarities and universality of the human experience and condition. They’re at opposite ends of the life cycle, and both get the chance to have this intimate look at life at either end by way of their family.

Ava is just two, so likely won’t remember this day, but Olive sure will. She’s sharp and physically able. Despite one of her daughter’s protestations, she enjoys taking the assisted transportation to Walmart. I think a big part of her ability to get around so well is her height. She was never even five feet when young. Now she’s four foot four. I imagine a six foot elderly woman having a much harder time getting around.

But she is 100, and she likes her silence. In between chats, she just liked to stare out her window or just generally around in the living room. She’d laugh at the random things said by Ava. She’s answer questions we’d ask. Otherwise, I wondered what she thought about. She’s lived such a full life with so many lives made possible and touched because of her. This counters the obvious: that it must be hard to age and become this distant with the fast-paced world outside her window. I wonder if she feels left behind.

Ollie still participates, though. At the end of the visit, she wanted to give me something in return. She pulled out her work, a bag of scarves she had recently crocheted. I got to pick out my favorite.

It’s amazing that I can have a relationship with the sister of my great-grandfather, that I can wear the scarf freshly crocheted by her 100-year-old hands. Then again, the verse on the handkerchief was Luke 1:37. With God, all things are possible.

*For more about my great-great-aunt Olive–life for her growing up in the Upper Midwest, what life is like for her now–here’s a piece I wrote 2.5 years ago after sitting down and interviewing her leading up to her 98th birthday.