Flowers and candy and sentimentality aside, mothers can be pretty terrific people -- and so can their mothers. PNS commentator Dorothy Chin recently visited her mother and her mother's mother, a visit that crossed lines of time, place, and memory. Chin is a psychotherapist and writer living in southern California.

My grandmother lives by herself in a government-subsidized high-rise for seniors in San Francisco's "South of Market" area.

Since I moved away from the city, this has changed from a windy, drab warehouse district to an area filled with ethnic cafes and nightclubs that seem to be populated by trendy 20-somethings around the clock. From her window, grandmother has a perfect view of the sidewalk tables at a Tex-Mex restaurant that serves nine versions of the Margarita.

Before, there was not much to look at -- "no excitement," my mother would say, worried that the lifelessness would somehow take root in my grandmother. So I feel grateful for the crowds in starched white shirts and red ties, stirring their multi-colored drinks.

I ring the doorbell once and hear Grandmother's reply, "Coming!" Because she always answers this way, I grew up thinking it was a Chinese thing. She opens the door and her smile wafts me in.

My grandmother is tiny, about four foot ten, and I feel too big next to her. "You are Ah-San?" She asks if I am me, using my Chinese name, because since her fall last year she gets me confused with my sister.

Then she buttons up the sweater she wears over another sweater, puts on the coat I hand her from the closet, leans on her cane with one hand, takes my arm with the other, and walks with me out to the car.

My grandmother turned 87 this year, but I never thought about her age too much until last year when she had a mild heart attack. Then it hit me -- she was past the age when most people stopped living alone and taking the bus, things she insisted on doing.

I was separated from my grandmother when I was eight. I moved to this country from Hong Kong with my parents and sister and brother. I didn't feel separated -- I drew pictures of the world as seen from our Chinatown apartment, including a view of the Bay Bridge that was in fact almost completely blocked, and sent them to her. I wrote her the names of streets, sent a diagram of our two rooms in blue ball-point with circles and squares to represent the furniture.

Four years after we came to San Francisco, my mother was able to send for my grandmother. She joined us in our new flat for a while, then moved to her current home. By that time I had become the typical American adolescent -- miserable in school, fighting with my parents, desperate to be "most-popular" and "most likely." My parents didn't understand, my siblings thought me spoiled -- but my grandmother held fast to her image of the girl who tried to paint the view from that Chinatown apartment. And, with her, I was that girl -- my rebelliousness naturally dissipated.

Today, when we get to my parents' house, I help my grandmother with her coat. She refuses my offer of tea. I bring her some anyway. She just sits. My mother thinks that since her fall, grandmother hasn't been the same, and I'm beginning to believe that, too -- though our perceptions are based on a feeling rather than anything concrete.

I want to suggest a game of mah-jong, something that we all used to do with gusto, but it's 5 o'clock and I don't want to bring up something she can no longer do. I want to be on the right side of the line between engagement and burden -- to feel her presence without making her sad or confused.

My mother points to my red sweater, which my grandmother knitted many years ago. "Do you remember when you made that? It's still beautiful."

"No, I didn't," she says, shaking her head. It's clear she does not believe she made it.

Then, almost as a reflex, she reaches in her pocket and pulls out a small red envelope imprinted with Chinese writing in gold. This is the "lucky money" usually reserved for children during special celebrations like birthday and New Year. Lately, though, she's been giving it to me whenever I see her. I say it's not necessary, it's too much -- then accept it and thank her, as is the custom with such things.

At dinner, she eats turkey and ham, stuffing and mashed potatoes. I take pictures all around, including a four-generation one.

Back at her apartment, she gives me another red envelope. As I leave, I resist the very American impulse to give her a hug -- something I now do routinely with friends but never with my grandmother because it is simply not part of being Chinese. Instead I squeeze her arm and, underneath all her sweaters, she feels good and solid.

And I think, she's still here. It's enough she's here.