My 95-Year-Old Grandma Saved My Life When No One Else Could. Then She Did It Again After Her Death.

Some say to count your blessings, but I lost count of the number of blessings I had in my first year at home with Grandma Bevy — it made up for a decade of being away. She was the first person I wanted to tell about a good first date or laugh about a bad one, discuss the family business and family in general, or the blizzard outside, according to the weather channel (despite the clear skies outside our window).

In December 2022, she treated me to a round-trip train ride to Toronto. When I came home, it was like the fall of Rome; it happened slowly and then all at once.

It was my father’s birthday that Sunday, so we brought cupcakes and candles to Grandma Bevy’s apartment. After a couple of tired weeks, we were amazed by her incredible burst of energy. I witnessed my grandmother devour an entire chocolate cupcake, icing and all. It was quite the rarity for a woman who daren’t eat a french fry.

After opening presents, we switched on the Montreal Canadiens game, high on sugar and cautious optimism. Grandma Bevy faded by the third period. The buzzer sounded as her five-foot frame melted into the king-sized bed. We had been foiled by her terminal lucidity, or surge, before the end. She would die within the week.

Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do with myself to fill the unbearable void. I had no one to visit midday and no reason to bake biscotti — pistachio, not almond, as she read on her iPad that they were higher in protein. Instead of the anticipated depression attached to grief, sleep deprivation from sitting by her bedside launched me into a manic panic. At her funeral, I ranted faster than Mrs. Maisel. I insomnibaked four dozen blueberry muffins for the extended family when sleep was no longer an option. I paced around her downtown neighborhood, convinced that everyone I passed was gathering intel to share with that same extended family — who were plotting against me, as were my friends.

The paranoia accumulated with the snowfall until spring hit, and everything came crashing down. Grandma Bevy wasn’t there to help me through the nadir. I went to her desolate condo, unwrapped one of her leftover butterscotch candies on her night table, and vented to her empty armchair in the back bedroom. 

“How am I supposed to do this without you, Grandma? There’s no one to insist I buy jeans without rips in the knees or revel at my new pair of homemade earrings. It doesn’t feel real. It can’t be real.”

I felt like a child in the wrong aisle at the grocery store — lost and desperate to be found. In one ear, I heard the all-too-familiar voice insisting I pillage for pills when my parents were out for dinner that night. In the other, I heard hers, whispering, “The world is not finished with you, sweetheart.”