How My Grandmother Learned to Use Video Chat

My grandmother is ninety-one and had never used a smartphone until I gave her one for her birthday. The first week was chaos.

She video-called me at three in the morning. She video-called me from inside her purse. She held the phone so close to her face that all I could see was one eyeball and her eyebrow. She took forty-two accidental photos of the ceiling.

But she kept trying. By the second month, she was calling me every Sunday, perfectly framed, wearing lipstick. She learned to send emojis. She learned to share photos. She learned, alarmingly, to use filters, and once called me wearing digital bunny ears and didn't know.

Now she has a group video call with all eleven of her great-grandchildren every Sunday. She calls it "her show." She's the star, obviously.