When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I came home to help her, the same cycle took over; I expected that she’d see how much I loved her as she lay dying, but instead, she continued to keep me at a distance. When she told me, on her deathbed, that she loved me, the words didn’t feel real; I want to believe that she felt that way, but I knew it was more likely that she was hazy and delusional in her final moments and thought she was talking to one of her countless boyfriends. “I was always a lot closer to my grandmother than to my mom,” I tell Gavin.
