This morning, we drove up to Sacramento to visit and stay with a friend of ours who has a child close in age to Kaia. We have visited this friend up in Sacramento twice before, once while I was pregnant in 2021, and the last time in August 2024. We didn’t come last year because she was the primary caregiver of not just her son, who she is a single parent, but also her mom at the time, who was going through lung cancer treatment. So she just had too much going on at the time. She messaged me in December of last year with the good news that her mom’s cancer was in remission. Unfortunately, it seems that did not last long: it had returned, and her treatments had started again in the last couple weeks.

The kids got together after she picked up her son from school this afternoon, and we spent some time together at the NorCal Aquarium nearby, followed by dinner at a local South Indian restaurant we enjoyed five years ago. My other local friend joined us for dinner. Afterwards, we went back to the first friend’s house, where we chatted for the next several hours while the kids built a fort and made the most ridiculous mess in the dining room. And the theme of our conversation was definitely around our health, our parents’ health and their aging and slowing down, and the overall maintenance of a home (and how overwhelming, exhausting, and expensive it can be). As I was participating in this conversation, it suddenly dawned on me how “middle aged” and “sandwich generation” this conversation felt.

That made me think about the time when the only grandparent I’ve ever known died. My paternal grandma died in 1995 when I was nine years old. At the time, my dad was 47 and my mom was 41. In the seven months leading up to her passing, my grandma was quite ill and eventually had to be moved into a convalescent home. I still have distinct memories of going to the hospital or the convalescent home almost every night after I got off school and my parents got off work. My parents somehow managed our household, worked full time, got food on the table and supplies for us, and cared for my grandma — all at the same time. I always look back at that fraught, frantic period and feel a sense of admiration for my parents and how they somehow kept it all together — at least sort of. I never felt neglected during that period, and I was always in the know with what was happening with my grandma’s state of health and treatment despite being so young.

To be frank, I am not sure if I could have ever done all the things my parents did. I can already see my parents slowing down a bit; I suppose I’ve been thinking about it a lot more on this trip. My dad, for the most part, seems to be in decent health. I know he monitors all his health results carefully and has modified his diet quite a bit over the last decade or so. My mom seems to be quite fragile, both mentally and physically. My main hope is that they live independently for as long as possible. I want them to have long, healthy, independent lives. I want to continue seeing them mobile, and I want Kaia to have a relationship with them and know them. But now when I think about how my grandma died when my dad was 47, and I am 40 today… that just gave me some chills. Death is an inevitable part of life. But I want to hope they will keep living for at least another decade or two. Here’s to hoping.