By: Kristian Keefer

Dear Nan,

There are things I wish I had said while you were still here. I think about that more now than I used to.

You weren’t the kind of grandmother people usually picture. You didn’t bake pies or sew quilts or sit in a rocking chair telling stories. That just wasn’t you.

What you were was strong.

You were the center of the family. When things got complicated or people didn’t know what to do, they came to you. I remember people sitting near your bed just talking things through, because somehow you always seemed to know what mattered and what didn’t.

What a lot of people didn’t really understand was how much you were carrying yourself.

You were sick for a long time. Eventually you became completely bedbound. I remember hearing people say more than once that you probably didn’t have much time left.

But somehow you kept proving them wrong.

Even from that bed, you were still the strong one.

I didn’t really understand what I was seeing back then. I was younger. I just knew you kept going when most people probably would have given up.

Now I understand it differently.

When you spend enough time in a bed fighting your own body, you start to see what real strength actually looks like. I think I understand you better now than I did then.

You were trying to raise me to be a strong woman. Someone steady. Someone who could hold things together when life got messy.

Life ended up taking me somewhere neither of us probably expected.

Nan, I’m a man now. I’m also a father trying to raise my kids the best way I know how.

But the lessons you gave me never went anywhere.

The strength you showed while you were sick is something I think about a lot now that I’m dealing with my own medical battles. When things feel uncertain or frightening, I remember the way you kept going.

You thought you were raising a strong woman.

What you actually did was help raise a strong man.

And I’m grateful for that, even if I didn’t say it enough while you were here.

Love,

Kristian