A DOORSTEP IN SCOTLAND — Grandparenting has become a digital endeavor lately. Care homes around the world have shut their doors to visitors amid the coronavirus pandemic, as the elderly are some of the most in need of strict quarantine.

In such troubling times, closeness is both more necessary than ever and something the coronavirus can’t give us. However, that doesn’t mean connecting with the older generation is impossible — we just have to become more creative.

We’ve seen beautiful stories of families reaching out to the elderly from a distance, including a husband who serenaded his wife, who has Alzheimer’s disease, through the window of her nursing home. A Utah neighborhood also threw a drive-by parade for a 93-year-old veteran.

Along the same vein, this clip of a ‘wee granny’ in Scotland offering a message of reassurance has gone viral.

I’ve never met this woman, but I love her with all of my heart. She has that maternal, ‘I know everything with the wisdom of my years' aura around her, and she uses quintessential older slang such as “like a bad penny!”

In that same authoritative softness of grandmothers, her words utterly convinced me that everything will be all right, there’s no getting rid of our grandparents, and it’ll all pass.

Sometimes, especially in the midst of a crisis, grandparents know best.

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Sandra the orangutan washes her hands like a pro

I know your hands are dried and cracked from washing them or rubbing sanitizer on them every 13 seconds. It can be obnoxious, but it's important, people.

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