My mother’s mother, she’s kind, loving, and hardworking. Maybe the hardest-working person I’ve ever known. As a child, it was a joke in our family that she never sat down. I can’t say I ever saw her rest or do something just for herself. She always gave to others. Her heart is full of love and an endless desire to care. She has spent most of her days in service to others.
As the local beautician, she did the hair of most of the women in the small town she called home. I was always excited to visit her beauty shop in the basement, the walls lined with photos of my cousins, my brother, and me as kids, sitting under the hair dryers. There was something so warm about that space, a sanctuary she created where women felt safe, seen, and beautiful. She worked tirelessly from sunup to sundown, preparing food, cleaning, and making sure everyone around her was taken care of. Whenever we made the long drive from Minnesota to South Dakota, there would always be warm banana bread waiting on the table. And if we were really lucky, she’d have rice crispy treats, peanut brittle, and my favorite cookies stored out on the porch, waiting for us.
I have the sweetest memories of those visits, spending time in the garden with her, playing pranks on my cousins, setting booby traps, running wild in that small town with endless summer days. But as I grew older, my excitement to visit South Dakota faded. I became consumed with big-city dreams. I wanted to be with my friends, go to parties, buy the coolest new clothes. Somewhere along the way, I started to feel too “cool” for Grandma’s house. Society got to me, convincing me that the fast-paced world was bigger and better. But now, when I reflect on what my grandmother created, I see that it’s exactly what I long for, a life full of community, love, and time in the garden.
She spent hours planting seeds, canning food, and running her business in the simplest yet most effective way, through word of mouth. She was good at what she did. She built real relationships with her clients. They trusted her, loved her, and always came back. She never worried about marketing strategies or social media or building a website. I doubt she even knows what a website is. She simply provided something of value, and people came.
She also saved like no other. I’ve always known her to be frugal, she had to be. She had been providing for herself since childhood. When she was just six years old, her mother died, and she was sent away to live with her aunt, a woman who was neither nurturing nor maternal. In fact, she stole from my grandmother. At thirteen, she was already working, taking care of another family’s children. Before she was even fully grown, she was responsible for the well-being of others. Of course, caretaking became second nature to her. She never knew anything different. It was how she survived.
There is so much I have inherited from my grandmother, her work ethic, her ability to create community, her deep connection to nature, her joy in cooking and making a home. But with all of this also comes the weight of her trauma. The pain of losing her mother before she even had the chance to know her. The fear she must have felt when she was taken from her father and siblings, separated from them with no way to communicate or even know if they were safe. The instability of living in a home where she never knew when the next beating was coming, or if she would have food to eat, or a place to sleep. I can only imagine how many times she feared for her life. How alone she must have felt. How she had no choice but to find strength within herself. She did, because she had to. And without that strength, she may not have survived.
She still carries that anxiety. Even now, in a care facility where everything is taken care of, she still worries about work and money. A few summers ago, when I spent extended time with her, we were doing art therapy in the backyard, and I noticed waves of anxiety wash over her as she asked me if her aunt knew where she was, if her aunt would be angry that she was late. Her mind has slipped into dementia, blurring the lines between past and present. But in those moments of silence, I could see the fear running through her body, the same fear she had felt as a child.
I felt it too.
I know my grandfather was her rock, her one safe place. She misses him deeply. I can feel it. One night, while sleeping in the same house as her, I had a dream. I heard her voice in my mind, calling out, “Dean, where are you? Dean?” The sadness in her voice was unbearable. I woke abruptly to the sound of her screaming for help. I ran downstairs and found her alone, confused, and devastated. She must have woken up searching for him, only to realize that he was gone. I helped her back into bed, but I couldn’t shake the sorrow that had settled in my chest.
After that visit, I returned to Prague. It was January, the darkest time of year, and I hit a low point. Living alone, I found myself experiencing a fear so deep, so consuming, I didn’t recognize it as my own. The nights were the worst, I would wake up in terror, screaming, crying. One night, I even called my mother because I didn’t know what else to do. The fear was irrational. I was safe. But something in me was convinced otherwise. It wasn’t until I sat with my therapist, Zuzanna, that I understood, this fear wasn’t just mine. It had been passed down. It was ancestral. It belonged to my grandmother, and her mother before her, and all the women who had lived in fear and scarcity before me.
I had been experiencing instability, unsure if I had a job, an apartment, a visa to stay in the country. It triggered something ancient within me. A primal fear for survival. And in those moments, no amount of rationality could ease it. I was not alone, had a beautiful support network, but in those nights of darkness, it felt like I was. And that must have been exactly how my grandmother felt as a child.
She didn’t have a mother to call in the middle of the night. Her mother was dead. Her father was gone. She didn’t have a phone or a safe place to land.
I wish I could visit that little girl. I wish I could hold her and tell her she is not alone. That one day, she will have a family of her own. That she will raise a beautiful daughter, who will go on to bring me into this world, and that we will be free. Free to seek healing, free to break cycles, free to create something new. I close my eyes now, and in my mind, I go back and hug her. And as I do, the tears fall. The screams come through. And maybe, just maybe, Grandma feels it too. I trust that healing can move backward, just as it moves forward.
Through writing this, I have found a deeper respect not just for my grandmother, but for all the women who came before me. For all the women who carried these burdens alone. And I have an immense love for myself, for holding space for this healing, for processing what I can so that my future daughter will not have to carry it. It ends with me.
And I am honored to set her free.
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