🌼 The chapter where I became the one taking care of the person who had always taken care of me.
Some mornings, I help my one-year-old get dressed.
Then I turn around and help the woman who raised me do the same.
That reversal is hard to explain.
Caring for my nana while raising three kids of my own has pulled me between two completely different kinds of caregiving.
One child is just beginning his life.
And the person who once held everything together for me is slowly needing me to hold more of it together for her.
The Fall That Changed Everything
I was overdue with my third baby when my nana had a bad fall.
I had already been dealing with false labor for weeks. Every day felt like it could be the day my baby arrived.
And then I got the call.
My nana ended up in the ER, followed by several weeks of rehab.
I was an hour and a half away from her. With traffic, it might as well have been a different world.
I couldn’t get to her the way I wanted to.
I remember the anxiety of that time so clearly.
The guilt of knowing she needed me while my own body was preparing to give birth.
My papa had already passed, and when something happened with her, I was the person she called.
She had always had my back.
And when she needed me to return that love, I couldn’t show up the way I wanted to.
When Independence Started Getting Harder
Not long after that, she unexpectedly sold her home and moved into an apartment fifteen minutes from us.
I wanted her to live with us from the beginning.
But mentally, she wasn’t ready.
She was still holding tightly to her independence.
I can take care of myself.
And I understood why that mattered to her.
But I could also see it becoming harder for that to remain true.
She lived in the apartment for about seven months.
During that time, I started noticing little things.
Repeating parts of a conversation. Needing me to explain something more than once before it fully settled.
Then she fell again.
She didn’t call me when it happened because she didn’t want to bother me. She also convinced herself it wasn’t serious enough to call 911.
The next morning, she finally called and told me she couldn’t get out of bed.
I drove over immediately.
And the deadbolt was locked.
It was the same deadbolt I had asked her not to use because I was scared of exactly this happening.
The apartment office wasn’t open yet. I was getting ready to call 911 when she somehow found the strength to get up and unlock the door.
I helped her to the couch, got her changed, and took her in.
She had a minor fracture.
It didn’t require surgery, but it was painful—especially with the scoliosis in her spine that already made it difficult for her to hold her head up for long.
I Was Falling Apart Too
After that fall, I drove to her apartment every day.
At the same time, my own back injury was at its worst.
I could barely care for myself some days.
But she needed help too.
It felt like we were both watching our bodies fail us in different ways…and neither of us could fully give the other what she needed.
That was when I made the decision to move her into assisted living.
It was still only fifteen minutes away, but there were people there whose job was to notice the things I couldn’t always catch.
She stayed there for about seven or eight months.
Then came a heart attack.
Heart failure.
Stents, with doctors telling us there could be more procedures ahead.
By then, she had moved three times in fifteen months.
I wanted her closer.
I wanted her to have a place in our home where she could be comfortable and surrounded by the people who loved her.
So she came to live with us.
What Our Days Look Like Now
Once a week, I fill her medication organizer for mornings and nights.
When she wakes up, I get her medicine ready with something to eat—even on the mornings she tells me she isn’t hungry.
I help her get dressed.
We talk.
The kids spend time with her while I take care of the toddler.
Sometimes they play a board game or cards. Sometimes they show her what they have been working on.
A new song on the guitar.
Something on the piano.
A crochet project.
Whatever it is that day.
I can see how much those little moments matter to her.
After that, she usually wants some quiet time to read or watch television.
Later, I ask what she thinks she can eat for dinner and make enough for everyone to sit down together.
The older kids help in the kitchen.
Then I bathe my toddler and get him to bed.
After that, I help my nana bathe—unless she wants to skip a night.
Then it’s my shower.
A load of laundry.
Maybe a blog post if I have anything left.
Maybe a game with my husband and his family before bed.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I try to make time for each of my older kids too.
Because the guilt of not having enough left for them at the end of the day is real.
It follows me around more than I would like to admit.
The Hardest Part Isn’t Being Tired
I can handle the physical exhaustion.
If I’m too tired, I can go to bed early.
What I don’t know how to manage is watching her body and memory change.
My husband only knows her during some of her hardest years.
He never had the chance to know her the way I did when I was growing up.
My children are watching these changes happen too.
They already watched my papa decline through dementia and Alzheimer’s.
They watched his body change so much that, toward the end, there were days when he barely looked like the same person.
Now we are facing some of those fears again.
These are the people I always knew had my back.
They loved me fiercely and without condition.
And I wish more than anything that I could give them every good thing in the world instead of watching them struggle.
The Night She Said Yes
Of everything that brought us here, there is one night I don’t think I will ever stop carrying.
She called me scared and crying.
She was confused and couldn’t remember whether she had eaten.
She wanted me there.
I was already crying before I got in the car.
My oldest son came with me because he wanted to help.
We cleaned her up.
I made her soup.
Then we sat with her until she felt steady again.
That was the night I asked her to live with us.
Her eyes filled with tears.
She said, “I think that would be a good idea.”
I hugged her, and we cried together.
I told her how much she meant to me.
And I promised her I would be there.
She Has Always Been More Than My Grandmother
My nana adopted me when I was very young.
Back then, I was scared of people.
I didn’t trust easily.
But from the time I was around four years old and she was able to keep me home with her, she became my safe place.
So even though she is technically my grandmother, she has always felt like my mom.
She was the person taking care of me.
The person making the decisions.
The person I trusted to know what came next.
Now I’m the one making the doctor calls.
I’m the one organizing her medication and trying to decide what comes next for her care.
There is something strange and disorienting about becoming the caregiver for the person who raised you.
You want to protect their independence.
But you also want to protect them.
And sometimes those two things pull you in completely different directions.
Eighty Years of Her
Today, she turns 80. 🎂🥳
Eighty years of a life that gave so much of itself away — to her own kids, to me, to a little girl who needed somewhere safe to land.
I don’t think she ever set out to be anyone’s hero.
She just kept showing up. For decades.
And now it’s my turn to keep showing up for her.
If You’re Living This Too
If you are caring for an aging parent or grandparent while still raising your own children, I don’t have a neat way to wrap this up for you.
I don’t think there is one.
There is a specific kind of ache in loving someone who once held everything together for you…and realizing they now need you to hold some of it together for them.
It is love.
But it is also grief, even while they are still here.
It is exhaustion, guilt, worry, and gratitude all tangled together.
I am thankful she is here.
I am thankful my children get this time with her.
And I am thankful I can give something back to the woman who gave me a safe place when I needed one most.
That doesn’t make the hard parts disappear.
But it reminds me why I keep showing up for them.
Thank you for letting me share this part of my story.
With love, Rachel (RaiRai 💛)
→ Some Days I Feel Like I’m Giving Them Pieces of Me
→ When I Couldn’t Lift My Baby: My Postpartum Back Injury
This post is based on my personal experience caring for a family member while raising my children. Every family and caregiving situation is different. This is not medical or caregiving advice. Please speak with your family member’s healthcare providers about their individual needs.
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