“What did you do today?” my superager grandmother Rosine, nicknamed Neni, asks me almost as soon as she picks up the phone on our nightly chats.
At 95, Neni lives on her own in the sunlit condo she bought as a widow in her fifties. Her main complaints are fatigue, hip pain, insomnia, and swelling in her ankles, mostly due to a heart that’s running out of lifetime. Still, she plows through her roster of self-imposed tasks as though her worth depends on the state of her carpets and cabinets.
She still bakes, speaks up at condo board meetings, scrubs her floors on her bony knees, and climbs atop her rickety rattan chairs to dust a chandelier that doesn’t need much dusting. She makes her bed every morning, no matter how badly she slept and still wants to sleep, careful not to leave a single crease in her comforter.
But no matter how much she handles, she gets down and defeated because she’s not like “before.” Neni is both tireless and tired.
We’ve always been close, but we’ve become closer in recent years since we discovered we have more in common than our green thumb and self-discipline.
My grandmother and I have similar health issues
I shouldn’t be able to relate to Neni’s frustrations about not doing enough and not being the person she used to be, but I do. I see myself in the way she slams into her chair, a controlled descent too difficult to orchestrate with joints and nerves out of tune. I see myself in her curved spine, backed-up bowels, and anxiety.
She’s 55 years older than me, except that I’ve aged before aging. Like Neni, I had a hysterectomy in my late 30s. Like her, the anemia that keeps me breathless has more to do with marrow than menstruation. We share the same cancer genes, the same allergies, the same immune system dysfunction.
I’ve had to reboot my career after my Ph.D. to accommodate an illness that won’t leave. I know how unsettling it feels to plant new offshoots while mourning the roots that rotted away.
This shared identity crisis forged an unexpected bond with my grandmother
We’ve become unlikely companions, brought together by the bodies that fail us.
Neni and I confide in each other. We vent about our incontinence and maddeningly itching skin. I understand her when she says she doesn’t recognize herself in the mirror, doesn’t fit into her pants, can’t bridge the gap between want and can. I never knew, before this, how much grief aging and chronic illness share.
“Are you constipated?” she asks me at least twice a week. She reminds me not to lift anything heavy, to have a banana for potassium, and not to overwater the plant she gave me.
Sometimes she asks me, “Is lasting living?”
She’s not only outlasted her husband but also most of the people she’s known and loved. She’s left behind a country, a language she once spoke fluently, and a craft her hands can no longer do. As immigrants, success meant enduring, sweeping pain under the rug to adapt and belong. But resilience has a downside: the stronger you are, the stronger you’re expected to be.
We’re learning to slow down together
Together, we’ve practiced pacing ourselves rather than pushing beyond our limits and paying for it later. Neni has always believed that rest is lazy, even when it’s earned. Now, she’s beginning to let herself nap to replenish her precious energy.
In turn, she’s been teaching me about resourcefulness and patience, and about how worthwhile things take the time they need. An avid gardener who nurses plants back to health and distributes thriving offshoots to her neighbors, she reminds me that blooms happen on their own schedule and seasons can’t be rushed.
“Don’t be afraid,” she tells me when the uncertainty with my health, my creativity, and surrogacy has me feeling unsteady. She reminds me that hard work and a little magic (but especially her prayers) go a long way.
As anxious as I am about her leaving and my aging, I know this bond we have is sacred. I also know she’s doing much more than just “lasting;” she’s in her space, with her music and her recipes, running her home as best as she can, even if her best fluctuates. Her resolve is stronger than her heartbeat.
She reminds me every day that there’s pride in organizing a home and finding comfort in order, rituals, light, and togetherness. These small acts of survival might just be our greatest legacy.
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