In just over a month, I’ll be walking the cobbled streets of Visby — tracing ancient walls, listening for legends, and chasing down echoes that refuse to fade.
But today, my thoughts are in two places at once.
Because exactly one year ago, the world lost a quiet force of wisdom, curiosity, and grace — my Gran, Bessie Alma.
She didn’t just raise a family. She inspired generations. It was her collection of National Geographics, stacked high and yellow-spined, that opened the world to me — from Mongolia to Madagascar, one glossy page at a time. I used to sit on the floor flipping through decades of them, asking about the people in her old photo albums, especially the ones she took in Spain. (She gave me one book — the only one I still have.)
Gran taught me that curiosity is a virtue, that the past always has something to say, and that “they can take away a lot, but they can’t take away your education.”
So when I finally get to Visby this August — to Medieval Week, to archives, to legends buried in stone — I’ll be carrying her with me.
She’s the reason I stop to read the plaques.
The reason I ask too many questions.
The reason I care who walked here before.
And now I’ve learned something even more incredible:
Through my mitochondrial DNA, I’m connected to an ancient woman buried in Fröjel, Gotland — the VK554 sample from the Viking Age. That means my maternal lineage has roots here going back over a thousand years.
So when I walk these paths, I’ll be tracing both family history and ancestral memory. Gran may not have set foot on Gotland — but somehow, we’re returning.
To those who took more than memories from her home — may the weight of that choice follow you.
Karma keeps a ledger.
But as for me, I’ll be wandering through Visby, hand-in-hand with the ghost of a woman who never stopped learning — and who knew that even if the books are lost, the story isn’t.
Swedish Word of the Day: minne (noun) – memory
(Minnet bleknar aldrig helt. Det byter bara form.
– Memory never truly fades. It just changes form.)
Swedish Wanderlust 