(for Donna)

Because for a woman who retired after
a long career as a traveling physical therapist
just in time to do daily care for her first
grandchild—something she very much
wanted to do—

last year juggling that with coordinating
the last months of our mother’s life
with extraordinary patience and kindness,
then doing the heavy lifting of clearing
out her house and settling her estate,

and recently having entered her own Medicare
years—though she looks a good twenty years
younger—

and because a second grandchild came along
so now she and my best brother-in-law ever
are chasing around two little ones under 3
and making it look like no big deal.

Today I watched my sister hoist her
granddaughter into an on-the back
carrier and shouldered the kid, then,
when the toddler boy had a tearful
moment, picked him up, too.

And my mind reeled back more than
three decades when she did the same thing
with her babies—the younger boy
on her back, the older girl in her arms—
that older girl now the mother of these two
that Grandma is currently toting,

all with such grace and patience
that I know she didn’t learn from
our mother, but somehow it was born
in her, this nurturing that allowed her
to become the mother she needed.

And, in doing so, she extends that care
to all around her, including this bigger,
older sister who is beyond grateful
that our parents had the good sense
to produce this sibling for me—
the best little sister ever.

Amen.