“I had no idea it would be this much. I had no idea I could handle it. I had no idea how beautiful it all actually is.”   -Tyler Knott Gregson

I am sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the sofa so I can write and nurse Eli at the same time. Ada is stretched out on her belly beside me, wearing one of my old t-shirts. Her hair is still messy from tossing and turning all night to the sound of thunder and heavy rain. She looks big to me but little, too. Seeing her both ways reminds me of how everything and nothing makes sense in our life right now. The best of times, the worst of times.

It has been three months since Grandma took her last breath in the Hospice bed Mom and I set up in the living room, underneath the shelf that holds pictures of the grandbabies. When I leave the house she shared with Mom, which is just seven doors away from our house, I remember following the stretcher out in the middle of the cold, crisp night. I remember the sound of the wheels on the sidewalk, the white light of the moon, the weight of my mom’s hand in mine, the peace and hysterics of The End that is The Beginning. I feel her presence sometimes but especially when I shut Mom’s door and walk out on the front porch. Last week, I felt it so much I actually said out loud, “I know, Grandma. I’m bringing her home with me.”

On the Friday two years ago, when Mom left the doctor’s office where she worked as a nurse, she had no idea she’d never go back. That weekend, Grandma nearly died alone in her home in Tennessee, and Mom’s drive from Cincinnati to Knoxville changed everything. She hadn’t been at that doctor’s office long and couldn’t take advantage of FMLA to care of her mother, so she quit her job and within a matter of months, moved herself and Grandma to our neighborhood in Georgetown where we could be our own little village.

The plan was that Mom would go back to work once they got settled but as Grandma got worse, there was never an opportunity. And then Mom’s kidney disease worsened. There were days last fall when I’d stop by their house with a baby on my hip and Ada under foot, and worry that I might lose Grandma or Mom, or both, at any point. In November, Mom was hospitalized and I had to drop Grandma off at Hospice Respite Care. I drove through the first snow of the season with her sitting beside me, staring out the window, begging me to take her home.

I have had a white-knuckled grasp on life since that night.

With Mom getting worse with every day, we started discussing putting Grandma in a nursing home. Mom was devastated. She has worked in geriatric care for nearly 30 years and promised she’d never put her mother in a nursing home but she couldn’t keep up with Grandma’s increasing needs while facing dialysis or, hopefully, a transplant.

The day before Christmas Eve, I took Mom to the pharmacy seven times with the kids in the backseat, trying to get this one medicine that soothes the muscle pain caused by the toxins released from her failing kidney. Without it, Mom is paralyzed with pain and can’t walk. You have this idea that when someone you love is sick, they’ll get the care they need in a timely manner. That isn’t the case. People get busy and forget to make phone calls. New employees overlook details and you fall between the cracks. Mail gets lost. Appointments get canceled because the doctor is overbooked. Judgements are made because of the type of insurance you do, or don’t, carry. It all makes you feel very, very, very small.

On our eighth trip to Kroger’s that day, she insisted on getting out of the car to help me gather groceries for Christmas Eve brunch with my brother and his family. It was snowing but she couldn’t walk with shoes. She walked hunched over a shopping cart, in socked feet, sipping 7-Up to fight the nausea that plagues her constantly. It took almost two hours to get the items we needed and we had to keep taking calls from my grandma, who was sick and home alone, and Travis, who was holding a screaming baby. I remember standing in line, hoping the cashier would finish scanning and bagging our groceries before Mom got sick right there. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” was playing and Christmas, with all of its trimmings, felt ridiculous and sickly sweet. I hated it.

I got home that night and laid on the floor, heartbroken for my mom and grandma and their poor, broken bodies. And afterwards, I pulled it together. It was the first Christmas Ada would remember. Fake it until you make it, I thought.

We ended up having a wonderful Christmas. We laughed. We got dizzy, giddy feelings sipping Mimosas. We visited family and sang and ate way too much. And then on Friday after Christmas, Grandma stopped eating or making sense. On December 29th, our 8th wedding anniversary, I called funeral homes to make the cremation arrangements so Mom wouldn’t have to do such an awful thing. On New Year’s Eve, Grandma asked to see Ada, Eli and Travis. It was the last time she’d recognize them.

The next day, we got her back from the confusion for an hour. She asked where she had been, told us about seeing loved ones who had passed on and asked me to “get her a damn Coke” because she was so thirsty. She was her sassy self for one hour. The three of us girls, Grandma, Mom and me, laughed and joked one last time. And then she slipped into confusion again.

People came to her bedside to say goodbye. We talked to her, held her hand, played her favorite hymns, wondered what changed so suddenly that brought us to this. I ran back and forth between nursing Eli to sitting with Grandma just so Mom, who spent all day and night by the hospital bed, could eat or shower or use the bathroom. And then on Friday night, while Mom and I sat watching a Tina Fey movie, we noticed Grandma’s breathing had become more shallow. Within a few hours, she was gone.

Those two weeks were horrible but beautiful. We cried a lot but then, there was laughter, too. It is a strange thing to lose your maternal grandmother. You feel like a nesting doll without a place to be tucked away. Watching your mother mourn her mother feels like watching your own future. Watching your grandmother’s body fail feels like watching part of your body fail, too. It’s all very eerie and beautiful. The best of times, the worst of times. In the months since she left us, I’ve wondered if letting go was her last act of mothering. She knew Mom would never be able to put her in a nursing home and she knew how sick Mom was, too. The kindness in that, the beauty, overwhelms me.

We are building an apartment in our basement for Mom to move in. She got a letter last week that she won’t be a candidate for transplant because she has no proof of income. I am furious for her. I have watched my single mom work my entire life, only to quit to take care of her mother, and now she can’t get the help she needs because she doesn’t have a job. She can’t work—which is what she wants more than anything because she loves being a nurse—because she needs a transplant. I want to scream when I think about it all.

And though so much of this has been a nightmare, it has been a dream, too. We have been overwhelmed with incredible kindness. A church we don’t even go to hosted Grandma’s funeral and took care of every single detail. Strangers have brought us meals. Friends have rallied. Family has pulled the money together to pay for us to finish the basement so Mom can move in and not have to worry about rent. We have been tremendously blessed. And all the while, our sweet babies are growing and laughing and keeping us grounded. Life is happening, and though it is crazy, it is happening. For that, I am deeply grateful.

Friends, I ask that if you have any spare prayers or kind thoughts, you might send them my momma’s way. It’s been a tough few months for her and I’m sure the weeks ahead, as she packs up her home and moves to our house, will be painful. I’m sure there will be tears but I pray there will be some much-needed laughter, too.