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From 1976, Anna had Skeda as her year-round home. Karin sometimes came for a visit. She spent many Chrismases at Skeda, but the last years of her life she was too old and tired. My parents, my brother (in the photo) and I sometimes visited her in her apartment in Ljungby. When my mother called her before visiting, she usually had to tell her that they had business in Ljungby anyway.

I remember that Karin was very short, smoked a lot, had black pants, gave us candy that looked like pieces of orange and (if I remember it correctly) kept money inside books. I have one clear recollection of her sitting in her bed (where she often laid smoking) under the bookshelf (with all the detective stories), telling us about how her gravestone would be designed. One of the last times that I met her was on her 90th birthday in 1983. By then, her hearing problem was so bad that one had to speak in a horn for her to hear anything at.

The last year of her life, Karin stayed at S:t Sigfrid's hospital in Växjö. I don't think that she, by then, was really aware about things going on around her. The last time that my mother visited her, she was sitting in her wheelchair, sleeping all the time. She died on the night of my 12th birthday, May 15, 1985. I remember my grandmother coming down from the upper floor, telling my parents about it in the kitchen, as I was listening to the record that I had for my birthday: The music from Amadeus.