My grandmother's eyes have seen eighty-two years. She's seen all this before. At her ease she ushers me into the house, sits me down at the kitchen table and bustles around with the tea things on the counter.

She's been sewing, mending a pair of trousers that anyone my age would have happily thrown away and replaced for a handful of coins. But she sits at the table in the kitchen like this often. She can darn too - she needs glasses to do it, but her hands are steady with practice and muscle memory, and her eyes are clear enough. I wouldn't know where to start, but she can turn a rag into a sock in no time at all.

The last of the summer sun comes low through the window and I squint across the table at the woman who half-raised me. This will be the last time I sit at this table before I move away. The first time I've left Ireland in ten years, moving to England for university. Moving, like my grandfather, my aunts and uncles, like my father. She's seen them all go, and this is what I think about as I drink my tea and she tells me about a friend of hers who retired recently and her hands sew gracefully.

Then I'm standing at the front door again, giving her a last hug as the sun sets red behind me. I remember hanging off the sleeve of her coat at this door, looking out over a well-kempt garden that seemed so big, the sky all blues and pinks and reds as the sun sank behind clouds, waving as my auntie left, me about four or five, my aunt about the age I am now, my grandmother seeming like she'd been, and would be, around forever.

My grandmother saw them all leave. And now she sees me.

(This piece was inspired by Martin Furey's "Grandmother's Eyes", and contains lyrics from that song)