At first we argued. She wanted to take care of us; we didn’t want to be taken care of. She insisted on shoveling the snow off the front steps of my parents’ house and we couldn’t seem to stop her. There were generational struggles too. I wanted to go out with my friends; she wanted me home with family because along with a black coat and a ficus she brought with her a different world.

In time we stopped telling her to rest. She gardened and shoveled and cooked. She chatted with our neighbors from Croatia: “hi” and “bye” and “robota,” the one word they both understood: in Slavic languages, the word for work.

Soon she was wearing maroon and taking English classes. She never skipped an assignment. Robota. She worked. The homework got harder with time and with her growing vocabulary. Write about your family. Or write about your weekend. And once, write what you think happiness is. My grandmother’s answer: Happiness is when your life on the outside matches your life on the inside. Still the best definition I’ve ever heard.

My grandmother took root. And then she grew.

After five years in New Jersey, at the age of 83, she became a United States citizen. She studied the 100 civics questions nervously for months, knowing she would be asked 10 of them but not knowing which ones. She had to answer six correctly to pass, which she did.

A few years later, with my father’s help, she applied for Section 8 housing so she could live independently.

She continued taking classes at the local senior community center, which she playfully called “kindergarten.” She read the newspaper every day for as long as she could and when her sight declined, an aide read to her. She watched concerts on PBS, baked beautiful strudels, gossiped about her neighbors, and was interested in every aspect of our lives and life in general. One month after her 100th birthday, she died in her sleep. She had been living on her own for 12 years.

When I moved to Massachusetts in my mid-20s, my father broke off a small branch of the ficus, as he had done when he was 8 years old, and gave it to me to plant in my new home.