One week before my nana died, I spent the night with her.

Nights weren’t typically my responsibility. We all took turns caring for her — spending the night had fallen to my nonno, while my mom and I would shower her and keep her company, ensuring she got her chemotherapy pills and went to radiation everyday.

As I helped her back into bed that night, I looked at my nonno’s face and saw exhaustion like I had never seen before. He’d always looked younger than he was, but over the past three months, he seemed to have aged 10 years.

When my nana was first diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer, we knew keeping her at home would be difficult. But in the middle of a pandemic, we didn’t want to put her into a facility where visitation restrictions could stop us from seeing her if she took a turn for the worse.

We had underestimated the toll that brain cancer could take on a person — being worn down by treatment was one thing, but now that the cancer had progressed, she could barely speak, was no longer able to recognize anyone in our family and called out for her long-dead mother constantly.

Tonight, though, she seemed better. Showering was easy, and when I stood behind her blow-drying her hair, she leaned back into me and closed her eyes, so peaceful for just a moment.

After we fed her dinner and my mom started to pack up, I took one more look at the bags under my nonno’s eyes and decided I would stay with my nana so he could sleep in the guest room. He quickly gave in.

I had always been my nana’s special grandchild, the one she called her second daughter. I was sure it would be okay.

I hugged my mom goodbye and sent my nonno off for an early bedtime. Then I settled into bed with my nana. This was a familiar feeling — when I was a kid, my mom would drop me off at my grandparents’ house early in the morning, and I’d crawl into bed while my nana was still sleeping. When she woke up, we would watch Heartland on the TV together until the sun was halfway across the sky.

As I laid on her bed that night, my nana was quiet, making it easier to pretend for just a few minutes that the cancer was gone, that I was just there to watch our favourite shows together again.

The bird-themed clock that hung on the far wall of the room hit 11 p.m., a small black-and-white bird’s call marking the late-night hour. I felt myself begin to fall asleep. I checked on my nana one last time, then settled onto my side of the bed.

“Mama! Mama!” I woke up with a start. My nana was frantically calling out for her mother, startling me from the thin veil of sleep.

I held her hand and smoothed her hair until she quieted down, closing her eyes and settling her head back onto the pillow again. I laid back down on mine and closed my eyes.

“Mama! Mama!” I felt my body jerk from sleep again, panicking that something was wrong as her shouts rang through the room. I sat up, ran my hand down her arm, spoke some quiet comforts to her and held her hand until she laid her head back down and closed her eyes again.

Over the next 5 hours, I woke up every 10 minutes to help her settle down. As a full-time undergraduate student working a full-time job and spending every free minute I had with my nana, my body was desperate for rest. Every time she shouted and I could do nothing to help, I felt myself inch closer to tears.

When the clock hit 4 a.m., I hit my breaking point. My eyes burned so badly tears dripped down my cheeks, and my body ached. My nana had always been the closest person to me; now she didn’t even know it was me laying next to her, trying to calm her down.

To her, I’d become a faceless person muttering incoherent comforts. In the darkness of her bedroom and the otherwise silent night, the full extent of her illness hit me in a steadily building wave, climbing higher with each shout.

“Mama! Mama!” Instead of reaching for her, I tipped my head back and closed my eyes, pushing back the stinging tears. In my desperation, I picked up my phone and called home.

My mom picked up on the third ring, her voice hoarse from sleep, but panic lining her tone. As I tried to open my mouth and tell her what was wrong, my nana began to call out again, crushing any chance that my mom would hear my words. When I opened my mouth, all I could do was sob.

Through my crying and my nana’s shouting in the background, I told my mom I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t comfort her, I couldn’t calm her down, I couldn’t help her, I was so, so tired. Tired in my bones and in my heart.

At 6 a.m., I laid in bed simply staring at the ceiling, holding her hand and watching orange hues from the sunrise play across the white paint. The exhaustion that lined my nonno’s face suddenly made perfect sense. He likely spent every night like this one, never getting more than 10 minutes of rest.

I felt like I was giving up on a fight I didn’t know I’d entered, giving up on the feeble hope I had always carried — I thought that because I loved my nana so much, I could handle taking care of her no matter how sick she got. As long as I was with her, I could power through the exhaustion and the pain and the heartbreak of losing her. But she wasn’t getting any better, and it made no difference to her that it had been me laying with her all night.

Two days later, an overnight personal support worker came to the house. I watched as she settled into a chair beside my nana’s bed and pulled out a book to read to her, leaving my nonno to make his way to the guest room to get a full night’s rest. I hovered in the doorway, my stomach in knots.

I knew it was the right decision, because we were all burning out. The woman we had loved was gone, and now someone had to watch her 24/7 to ensure she didn’t try to get out of bed and fall, didn’t drink or eat something she wasn’t supposed to. We had to spoon-feed her and help her to the bathroom, on top of all of us working full-time jobs and having our own families — and in my case, a fully functioning farm with multiple horses — to take care of.

Still, the guilt threatened to suffocate me, telling me I should be the one staying with her even though it had led to me breaking down.

That night, I laid in bed and was almost as sleepless as I had been the night before. I tossed and turned for hours, wondering if she was being cared for properly, if she was stressed or scared. Eventually, sleep dragged me under, and when I woke up, I had slept through my alarm.

When I returned to the house in the morning, I thanked the support worker and found my nana asleep. My eyes didn’t burn, and when I laid down beside her, it didn’t make me jump when she called out, “Mama! Mama!”

I held her hand and smoothed her hair. I put on our favourite show, content to watch Heartland with my nana until the sun was halfway across the sky, even if she didn’t know.