Shells Left Behind

Over the Fourth of July weekend, I had the chance to visit my 87-year-old grandmother with my husband and our 4-year-old son. It was a special, bittersweet trip — one that left me feeling reflective and tender in ways I didn’t quite expect.

Growing up, I spent nearly as much time with my grandparents as I did with my parents. When they still lived in Pennsylvania, I stayed with them several days a week while my parents worked. After they retired to Marco Island, Florida — long before it became the bustling resort destination it is today — I spent my summers visiting them in what felt like a sleepy beachside paradise.

Image of my grandparents, cousin and I from 2000.

The bond I had with my grandparents shaped so much of who I am. My grandfather passed away almost seven years ago, but my grandmother — a woman full of spunk, stories, and surprising adventures — is still with us. She’s always been a force: working at Area 51 in her twenties, rock climbing on cruise ships in her seventies, and even dating a former astronaut well into her eighties. Just a couple of years ago, at 85, she was still getting her 10,000 steps a day.

But this trip felt different. She recently moved into a senior living facility, and while we had a beautiful time — visiting the zoo, taking a short boat ride at the Naples Nature Center — there was a quiet shift I couldn’t ignore. Her memory is beginning to fade, and there was a gentler, more subdued energy in her spirit.

We stayed at her condo, a place filled with decades of memories. It was purchased pre-construction in the early 2000s for $370,000 — now worth well over a million — but its true value to me is immeasurable. With her transition into senior living, the future of the condo is uncertain, though thankfully my mom and her sisters are holding onto it for now. Still, walking through its familiar hallways, surrounded by trinkets and treasures collected over a lifetime, I felt the weight of time.

My grandma and I after going on the boat nature tour.

I found myself poring over old photo albums, snapping pictures of pictures, trying to hold onto fragments of a story that shaped mine.

I wish I could visit her more often, but between work and raising a young child, it’s hard to manage more than one trip a year. And as I said goodbye this time, I couldn’t shake the feeling — this might have been the last time I’d stand in that space, in that chapter of my life.