Grandmothers: A Wellspring of Strength

In honor of Mother's Day this year, I'm publishing an essay/nonfiction story I wrote about the strong older women in my life. It begins when JJ first began showing symptoms, in 2020.

We arrived at my in-law’s farm on April Fool’s Day, but it felt nothing like a joke. Though it was three months into the pandemic, my husband and I were unlike most other parents, tired of the forced proximity to their children. We had just spent eight weeks separated from our five-year-old daughter, RoRo, and I could have cried with relief as she bounded up to the car to greet us. While she chattered on about the baby chicks Grandma had just bought her, I crushed her to me and pressed a kiss to her temple.

My two-year-old daughter, JJ, was at the root of our separation from her older sister. JJ’s progressive genetic disorder, her screaming tantrums, and a long waitlist at the city’s best behavioral clinic had been all it took to rend our family in two. The patchwork of bite marks on JJ’s hands and the sound of her constant screaming had led her older sister to pull out tufts of her own hair. My husband and I made the gut-wrenching decision to spare RoRo more trauma and send her to the calm and peace of her grandparent’s farm.

Though this was our family’s first true crisis point, it would not be our last. As the months dragged on and the world slipped in and out of a global pandemic, the four of us slipped in and out of our own painful reality. JJ learned to walk with the aid of leg braces and shoe inserts, only for her steps to falter a year later. As her eyes lost their focus and her sight slowly disappeared, seizures scrambled her brain and the ability to process the world around her. A decline in swallow function led to the insertion of a life-saving feeding tube, and a brain malformation required emergency surgery.

Though my husband and I bore a large part of the worry and responsibility, we were far from alone. His mother, my mother, and one of my aunts—a caregiving trifecta—made sure we never traveled our difficult path unaccompanied. Grandma Theresa nurtured RoRo on the farm during those first few months, ensuring that my oldest daughter’s patchy hair grew back thick and glossy. Grandma Cindy sheltered RoRo from the pain of her sister’s brain surgery, bathing my oldest daughter in the gentle glow of cat videos and shared giggles. Every Tuesday my Aunt Susan came to the house to help my husband so I could take a much-needed break and attend my weekly writing group.

Through the ups and downs of our terrifying roller coaster, all three women also cared for JJ. They held my daughter’s small body to their chests after it had been wracked by clusters of seizures. They cradled her in their arms and rocked her in our living room recliner as she dozed in pools of afternoon sunshine. Before JJ’s feeding tube, they held straws to her lips and spoons to her mouth when she lost the hand coordination to feed herself.

The three women were there for our moments of triumph as well. Once JJ’s seizures were under control, she regained much of her vision and used her new eye-gaze device to profess her love for Grandma Theresa. After a newly-approved medication improved my daughter’s gait and mobility, she smiled with glee as Grandma Cindy walked her in circles around our living room floor. Whenever Aunt Susan visited—always with a new sparkly hair bow or matching outfit—JJ lit up. I am a fashionista she bragged to everyone at school.

Before JJ’s diagnosis, I never paid particular attention to women my mother’s age. Now I not only notice them, but I marvel at the people they have become. Like the three women in my family, many have spent decades facing down the difficult things in life and have been whittled down to the sharpest, strongest versions of themselves. Often, these women have shepherded a parent through their last years, received painful diagnoses, survived divorce, or grieved the loss of a loved one. Yet, they are still willing to take on more when life calls for it.

These are not your stereotypical grandmothers—with their Precious Moments figurines, Murder She Wrote reruns, and folksy words of wisdom. They are the perfect blend of strength and fragility, muscle and heart, grit and compassion. For decades they have belonged to that vast, invisible network made up of some of the toughest people on earth. For decades they have been caregivers.  

I, too, am a caregiver now. I became one the minute I gave birth to RoRo and then doubled down on the role when JJ’s health declined. While fate has not yet made me my sharpest and strongest self, the process has certainly begun.

That day on the farm, when I finally held RoRo in my arms again? I did not put my oldest daughter in our car and return home as I longed to do. Instead, the four of us stayed with my in-laws so I could do something far more difficult. The behavioral therapy clinic that had waitlisted us closed its doors, but one of their therapists was still willing to coach me over Zoom. Slowly, with hours of daily work during our family’s time on the farm, I taught JJ to control her hair-trigger temper. With my help, she bit herself less, stopped banging her head on floors and walls, and started taking calming breaths. I’m not sure where I found my wellspring of strength, patience, and determination, but I have an idea.

It seems to run in the family.