At times, when Francesco’s pessimistic, I’ll get worked up and give him an alternative vision of the world, where everyone is redeemed. I started telling him about my grandmother, whose story might be even more inscrutable than my mother’s, so even more salvific for us, in our situation that night, an hour or so from this important birthday, when I’d be launched into the sunset of life, into darkness.

My grandmother was a member of a group who worshipped the tabernacle; it was their mission never to abandon the Host. They took turns worshipping it, constantly. When it was her turn at night, on her knees behind a pew in the nave, the Host nearby in a protective display case in a wall niche, the church, I imagine, would be locked.

Her father died in her arms. That’s how I always heard it. And right after she lost her husband, at sixty-three, she decided to enter the Neocatechumenal Way to try to understand the faith choices of four of her children and their spouses, to be closer to them. She let the catechists send her to London and Taiwan, where she worked as a volunteer cook for young men in seminary, aspiring priests from all over the world.

She was dignified. She didn’t like permanent home care. She didn’t want to be seen naked or in the various awkward positions the elderly must endure daily. Her toilet, for instance, had an elevated seat because she couldn’t stand up from a normal toilet, and I’m sure she didn’t want others to go into the bathroom and see it, this explicit indication of bodily weakness.

She reached ninety after twenty-five years of arthritic pain and countless sleepless nights spent reciting the rosary in bed or in her easy chair. She’d tell me, “I see the devil, he’s right there,” and from her easy-chair recliner, she’d point to a corner of the living room, by the TV set. She felt the temptation of the devil, and she lived with her arthritis brought on by her two frugal years as a cook in London and Taiwan.

In the few years before she turned ninety, she grew steadily more confused. I’d go see her about once a month, not even, and I was one of her favorite grandchildren. As she grew less and less coherent, I learned to hold her cold hand, fragile from cortisone, and caress it. At first, this felt indecent, but I’d leave her apartment crying my eyes out, and I’m crying now as I write.