Grieving my own way

Grieving my own way

by Jen Davies, nerd

Aug 19, 2026

If you're reading this, my grandmother has passed away.

My grandmother was born in 1933 (Great Depression still raging, even in Canada) and grew up in a house with her father's parents and aunts/uncles from both sides of the family. Because that was what you did. Family and community were essential to making life happen (and remain so). And I'm feeling like I need to do more of "that".

She was beautiful. She married at 18 and was a mother at 19. My mother made her a mother, the same way that my arrival in the world made her a grandmother. I had the great pleasure of taking them both to Las Vegas in 2017 or 2018, with my spouse's help of course. Why Las Vegas? I can vividly remember childhood sleepovers with my cousins in Grandma's upstairs, so "the ladies" could play poker, curse up a storm and smoke cigarettes all night at the dining table. Seeing the Grand Canyon with them was unforgettable. 

I inherited her vital laugh and quick smile through my mother. Apparently I also inherited her ability to throw shade, though I only learned how just rude she could be (in a thoroughly delightful way) in the last 5 or 6 years - her snide remarks were outstanding whenever a banker or an accounts officer was late or unable to help us.

And last week, at the age of 93, she was hospitalized after a fall and (being 93) her body began to give up, and she was placed in hospice care. At the time of writing, she was receiving only pain management. But I think she has been getting ready to go for some time, so my grieving began more than a year ago.

People in her generation didn't talk about their feelings or complain very much, but looks and silence can say a lot too. She was nudged toward readying herself to depart this life in 2020, when my mother died (of a heart condition, not COVID). I got lucky and I was in my hometown while my mother, her oldest child, was in hospital (and the social distancing rules had lifted just enough that doctors could let us visit one at a time). Grandma got "lucky" and she was there when my mother stopped (not a typo - she just stopped). It was a peaceful death and the ICU nurse assured us both it was probably pain-free, especially versus how hard breathing had been for the prior few weeks as her heart failed. 

The hospital called to tell me, and when I arrived the look on Grandma's face said: it's not fair. Never mind the terrible sadness of outliving one of your children, Mom and Grandma were best friends. Age matters less when you get older, so they spent time together pretty much every day. They got each other out of the house (Grandma gave up her driver's license in the 1960s or 70s - long story). They checked on each other's health and kept each others' minds active. So it was worse than losing a child, she lost her primary lifeline to the rest of the world. It really wasn't fair, a double-dose of loss.

I helped her serve as executor for my mother's estate, because I had been a minor when the will was written so her Grandma's was still attached. It was a real pleasure to live with her for 5 months while we did that work together, and I worked my job remotely from her dining room table, and we figured out how to wrap up my mother's life. We cried together. We also laughed a lot. And when I had to go back to my life in Toronto I missed Grandma in a way that I never had before because I felt like I knew who she was. Eventually I moved back to my hometown, in part to try to be part of her last few years, however many there were left.

As much as she loved her remaining children, and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, losing my mother had tipped her onto some kind of path that compelled her to ask her children to begin decluttering her basement, and she even tried to give away some furniture to grandkids who were moving homes (ie, they might need it - and she had decided she did not). As her friends and family members began to pass, I believe she thought in general terms about death often. Quite a few people stepped in to fill the gaps that my mother had left, but the gaps had grown wider. She began to lose interest in life and her health began to fail, and eventually she didn't want to leave the house. Knitting and crochet had long been a hobby of hers to keep her hands busy while she watched baseball. Sometime last summer she stopped watching baseball. Couldn't focus, she said. She became a pickier eater. Then last fall she stopped making granny squares for blankets so she could make smaller items. Easier to focus on, I guess. And I heard it was getting harder for my aunt, her primary caregiver, to get her to eat anything. Then this winter, she stopped crocheting entirely, and sleeping most of the time. I don't know what other people were thinking, but as a psychotherapist I talk with lots of people who have been through the loss of a senior person, and I recognized signs of depression among the collection of health-related things. 

I imagine there may be folks who judge me negatively to learn that I didn't go to the hospital to see her, when she fell or when she went into end-of-life care. She had 4-5 other people who were there daily for the moments she woke up, and I heard she was totally unconscious the the last 4 or 5 days, so it made sense not to get in the way of people who wanted to be there in case there were moments of awareness. Mostly, though, I didn't want to remember her that way. I had her for a glorious 5 months in 2020 when I got to know the real woman - and many afternoons since. I cherish those days, as hard as they were, when she was beautiful, quick to smile, and engaged in some handiwork that made her happy.

So while I'm terribly sad that I'm not going to have her presence in my life anymore, I'm thankful for the memories I have. 

I'm also thankful more than I can say to my aunt who became a near-full-time caregiver at points and let Grandma live out her life in the home where she raised her 5 kids alone after she kicked my grandfather out and divorced him (something women didn't do in the 1960s - you can see was quite the formidable person). I'm grateful to an uncle who fixed things around the house to make it safer and shovelled the walkway in the winter. I'm grateful to my uncle who visited as often as he could even though he was still working, and made sure she always had bread to go with her peanut butter when she stopped cooking for herself. I'm grateful for neighbours she had over decades, who cut her grass. There are so many thanks missing here. Thank you, if you were one of her many helpers.

Now she's gone, and I'm sad, but I can still hear her in my heart. 

Love you, Grandma.

(Love you too, babe.)