Pre-Grief, and Other Myths

This summer has been an exercise in preparation. 

Wait. Let me back up a little.

This year has been an exercise in expectations. 

I began 2025 thinking my grandmother was going to die. In January, she had another health setback, which at the age of 94 could mean almost anything. I remember telling my boyfriend, soon to be husband, that I started mentally preparing for this to be the year, if not month, my grandmother will die. She didn’t. She’s bounced back so many times from so many different things since then that I honestly don’t even remember what, specifically, had me so scared in January. 

The following month, I believed that I was going to die. The experience was brief, but it was impactful enough to have me consider my own expectations about my “remaining years,” if that was, indeed, what they were going to be. It feels dramatic to think about it that way now. Thankfully it was the very definition of a health scare, largely a mix-up, really, and I am not going anywhere yet. 

That doesn’t mean my brief confrontation with mortality hasn’t left an impact. I will be exiting 2025 with a husband and a finished novel - two things I was planning to get around to eventually anyway, but why wait? 

Which brings me back to this summer. 

August is always difficult, but this one has been pretty relentless. In between finalizing wedding plans and trying to help my stepson through his reluctant move into a new dorm, the worry about my grandmother returned as well. After a relatively stable spring, she’s been hospitalized three times since June. Earlier this month, the conversation about “options” was brought up by her doctors. 

I think my grieving process for her started when she went into a nursing home five years ago (yes, at the very start of the pandemic, the worst possible time for anything, let alone entering a nursing home…). I never thought of it as “grieving” or preparing for anything specific. It just felt like a turning point, and it was. 

Three weeks ago, I was days away from visiting my family and pleading with nobody that she hang on from her hospital bed at least until after I got there. She did. She was herself, but not herself, and leaving at the end of the weekend was emotionally charged. The entire family, my grandmother included, were grieving. 

The day after I got back to Brooklyn, she went home too. Not only with a clean bill of health (as clean as a 94-year-old’s with several health issues can be), but seemingly thriving. I received a photo of her smiling at a county fair where she won an art contest. A week later, I got a video of her singing along at a music event at her facility. This woman, I tell ya. 

As I write this, she is home and OK and I am still grieving. At least that’s what I’m calling it, getting a jump on the hard part so that it seems easier later. But, of course, there’s no such thing as pre-grief. (If you watched Succession and remember Roman Roy’s proclamations of pre-grieving, you know what happened next.)

As I write this, I am also still worrying about my stepson, who completed his move and is wandering unsteadily, and terrifyingly, into adulthood. I am thinking about final wedding plans and did we forget anything and maybe we should have gone bigger or actually maybe we should have just eloped. I’m wondering when, on top of everything, will I have time to get away for a weekend to write? I am worrying about things I am excited for as much as the things I’m dreading. 

2025 has been an endurance test. 

One of my favorite moments after taking a trip is when, finally coming back to New York, I see the skyline. It’s my “welcome home” sign. Whether I’m driving or flying home, that first time it becomes visible again is my reminder to relax. I’ve reached that moment in 2025. Yes, we still need to land. Yes, there will be traffic. Yes, home-home is still a ways away. But, it’s there.

FUN STUFF:

What I'm Reading: About to start Sandwich by Catherine Newman

What I'm Watching: The Gilded Age (HBO)

What I'm Listening To: Jenny Lewis (per usual)

What I'm Eating: Creamy Tomato & Lentil Soup