Reflections on Nanci’s journey from grandmother to parent, and the quiet power of love that shows up every day.
When Everything Changed
Today, I sat with the story of Nanci, a grandmother raising her almost nine-year-old grandson after life fractured in ways no family ever anticipates. What began as temporary support slowly became a complete restructuring of her life, identity, and future.
When her grandson was born, Nanci watched her adult daughter struggle deeply with substance use while trying to care for a newborn. The child’s father was incarcerated, and for the first three years of his life, instability and trauma surrounded him. They all lived together for a time, navigating survival one day at a time, until one day everything changed. Her daughter dropped the little boy off at his great-grandmother’s house and disappeared, never to return. Soon after, the great-grandmother called Nanci and told her to come pick him up.
And she did.
Stepping Into the Gap
Listening to Nanci describe those early years was both heartbreaking and profoundly moving. She spoke about the quiet grief of wishing she could have intervened sooner, wishing she could have protected him from the trauma he experienced during those first years of life. But alongside that grief was determination. She made the decision to become not simply a grandmother, but the mother figure he needed.
A Different Kind of Grandmother
One of the most striking parts of our conversation was hearing how caregiving reshaped family roles and identities. Nanci described how she had to become the “boundary setter,” the disciplinarian, the provider of structure and stability, even when it meant sacrificing the softer, more indulgent image often associated with being a grandmother. In many ways, the child’s great-grandmother became the traditional grandmother figure, allowing more freedom and leniency, while Nanci carried the weight of routine, responsibility, and consistency.
She shared stories that felt deeply familiar to anyone who has ever tried to raise a child through love and structure at the same time. At his great-grandmother’s house, he leaves cereal bowls behind because someone else will eventually clean them up. But at Nanci’s house, there are expectations, routines, and accountability. She knows that stability matters for children carrying invisible trauma.
The Strength of a Village
Nanci also reflected honestly on aging while caregiving. At 57, she recognizes there are things she cannot physically do the way she might have at 27. Yet what emerged beautifully in her story was the power of collective caregiving, the village that steps in where one person alone cannot carry everything. His aunt climbs mountains with him, takes him to the lake, and gives him opportunities for play and adventure that Nanci may no longer physically manage herself.
Moments That Make It Worthwhile
And still, amid the exhaustion and sacrifice, there were moments of profound tenderness.
The Duckling Story
One story lingered with me long after the interview ended.
Her grandson once came home from the park carrying an egg he had found in the grass. He was convinced it could hatch, and he wanted Nanci to help him care for it. So she bought an incubator, and together they waited for nearly a month. Then one day, while he was at school, she noticed a tiny tail beginning to emerge from the shell. She immediately called him to tell him the duckling was hatching.
But he had one very serious instruction: do not let the duckling see her first.
He wanted that little duckling to see him before anyone else.
So Nanci hid herself away, waiting until he came home so that moment could belong entirely to him.
As she shared this story, she laughed softly about the absurdity and sweetness of it all, the quirky, unexpected moments that somehow make the hardest days worthwhile.
The Quiet Rewards
She told me that sometimes the reward is as simple as hearing, “Good morning, Grandma.”
And perhaps that is what stayed with me most.
The rewards are not always grand or constant. They arrive quietly, in small rituals, in trust, in attachment, in witnessing a child slowly thrive despite beginnings that could have gone another way.
For a child exposed to methamphetamine in utero, for a child whose earliest years were marked by instability and loss, Nanci sees hope in who he is becoming. He may not be at the top of his class, she said, but he is not at the bottom either. He is growing. He is functioning. He is becoming.
And for her, that matters deeply.
Love That Shows Up
This conversation reminded me yet again of the quiet, often invisible labor of grandmothers who step into impossible gaps simply because someone has to. Women who re-enter parenthood not because they planned to, but because love demanded it of them.
Holding a Child Steady
Nanci’s story was not one of perfection. It was a story of adaptation, sacrifice, grief, humor, boundaries, endurance, and unwavering care.
A grandmother doing the best she can to hold a child steady in a world that once failed him.