Sometimes when she talks,

  her voice slips — softens —

  and suddenly I’m not hearing my grandma at all.

  I’m hearing the little girl she used to be.

  The one who lost too much, too young.

  The one still waiting for her mother to come home,

  still reaching for a man who isn’t here anymore,

  still clutching memories like they’re warm hands

  and not ghosts.

  I see her.

  Not the woman who sighs too loud

  or repeats the same worry five times,

  but the small girl under all that age,

  the one who just wants someone

  to stay,

  to listen,

  to love her the way she was never fully loved.

  And God —

  I want to love her better.

  I want to be patient,

  gentle,

  soft in all the places life made her hard.

  I want to give her something steady,

  something safe,

  something she can lean on without fear

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  of it breaking.

  But I’m human.

  And sometimes she irritates me.

  Sometimes her sadness feels heavy,

  her habits familiar in the absolute best and worst ways,

  her voice a reminder

  of wounds carried down like heirlooms.

  And still —

  I love her.

  Even when I’m tired.

  Even when I’m frustrated.

  Even when I wish I could disappear

  into silence for a moment

  just to breathe.

  I love her in a way that feels older than both of us,

  like I’ve known her across lifetimes,

  like maybe I’m here

  to hold the little girl she used to be

  because no one else ever did.

  And when she looks at me,

  really looks,

  I see all of it —

  the grief, the longing, the childlike hope

  that someone will choose her.

  I hope she knows that I do.

  I hope she feels it

  even on the days I fall short.

  Even on the days I flinch.

  Even on the days I am not the version of myself

  she deserves.

  Because beneath everything —

  beneath frustration and flaws and bloodline exhaustion —

  I love her.

  And I carry the little girl in her

  as gently as I can.