McKenna Joy Nelsen came into our lives in 2013, the year she was born. For the first two years, she came and went. Then, in 2015, when she was two, she came to live with Trish and me full-time. We were approaching seventy, and raising a little girl was hardly what most people would have expected us to be doing. But she needed a home, and we became the ones who provided it.
Her middle name was Joy. Before long, that seemed exactly right. She became our joy, and from the beginning I called her my “Little Sugar-buger.”
Nana and Grandad
I had raised three sons. Raising a little girl was a new experience for me, and I freely admitted that I was her biggest fan. I also admitted that I had spoiled her. Not the smelling kind of spoiled, I wrote, but the sweet kind. She could do very little wrong in her grandad’s eyes.
That did not mean we never had to tell her no. Love still came with the responsibility to guide her, even when she did not appreciate it. But what I remember most is how freely she showed her affection. She would come into my office unannounced, throw her arms around my neck, kiss my cheek, and say, “Grandad, I love you.” Then she would do the same thing to Nana. Some days it seemed she told us she loved us twenty or thirty times. We never had to wonder whether she loved us.
Trish had suffered a major stroke in June 2015, and her recovery was difficult. Into those years of changed health and changed circumstances came this little girl. Our home held more than illness and the limitations of growing older. It held McKenna, with her affection, her needs, and all the work that comes with raising a child.
Making Her Home Secure
Her father had sent her to live with us because he recognized that he could not care for her. For the first few years, we raised her without having legal custody. Then, in February 2019, I received a call from a California coroner telling me that her father had died the previous October. McKenna was five. Trish and I knew we needed to take steps to protect her and make her home with us secure.
The legal process involved both California and Texas, attorneys in two states, and a long series of requirements. Being retired and on a fixed income made the expense particularly difficult. After a year and three months, on June 4, 2020, we finally had a signed court order granting us custody. By then, she was in first grade, happy and doing well in school.
Then I became seriously ill. In January 2021, just before my seventy-fifth birthday, COVID and double pneumonia put me in the hospital for nine days, followed by another five days in early February. While I was ill, Trish and McKenna stayed with Trish’s oldest daughter across the lake. My recovery was slow, and McKenna finished the school year and attended summer camp from her aunt’s home.
Another custody proceeding followed. We had to find a new attorney and face another long and expensive process. After approximately eleven months, we again had signed orders allowing us to continue raising her. Her aunt joined in as a co-managing conservator, and McKenna had become a joy to her aunt and uncle as well. I believed God had worked through circumstances I had not understood while they were happening. My illness had frightened us, but her stay with her aunt had helped establish the support we needed during that later proceeding.
A Letter to Grandad
In 2022, when McKenna was nine, she wrote me a note dated May 31. I wanted to preserve it because no account of court hearings or family responsibilities could say what those words said to me.
“Dear Grandad,
“I will love you forever as long as you are living, my teddy bear, you’ll be. Remember all the fun times and the sad times? Remember that we will never break our friendship. I wrote this note so you will never forget that I love you. I don’t care what happens in our lives; you will always be my favorite, no matter if someone doesn’t like you or what. I love you, and that’s what matters. You will always be in my heart, and I will never forget you. So, I hope you understand you have been a father, grandfather, a brother, and life saver.”
Would that tear at your heartstrings or what? It certainly did mine. Those were the words of a little girl, and I treasured them.
Her Words to Nana
She wrote something just as precious to Trish for Mother’s Day:
“I love you, Dear Nana, you make my heart feel good. When you bake me cookies, you make me hot chocolate, lemonade, and milk. You were always there when I hurt, and still, you’re there when I need you. I love you like my mother day and night; you’ve almost kept me my whole life. Now everything is changing into a sight, I’m growing up, you are growing older every day, and we are going to make a perfect team. We do puzzles together; we watch movies and eat ice cream. I love you Nana. I love you so much, you make my eyes gleam in the sun. When I am awake, I see you right there; when I am asleep, I know you will be there. You say I am sweet, and you are too! I’ll never have a grandmother like you! I want you to remember, I’ll always love you so, day and night, I’ll think about you!!”
Cookies, hot chocolate, puzzles, movies, and ice cream. Those were the things she remembered about being with Nana. Trish had given her care and comfort through years when her own health made so much difficult. McKenna’s words showed how much that care had meant to her.
Learning to Understand Her Fears
There were things I did not understand immediately. For a time, McKenna became frightened when we set the house alarm at night. An earlier malfunction had made the alarm sound for a long time before I could stop it. She had panicked and thought the house might burn down. Even after the system was repaired, she did not trust it.
Later, as she became reluctant to spend the night with us, I began to think that more than the alarm was troubling her. Perhaps she worried that something might happen to Nana or Grandad and she would not know how to get help. That was my understanding of her fear, not something I could know for certain. But it helped me look beyond behavior that had confused me and consider what a little girl might be carrying inside.
Trish and I talked about it. We could not honestly promise that nothing would ever happen to us. We wanted to help her feel safe, and I began looking for a counselor, with one of my sons helping in the search. Loving her meant trying to understand her fears as well as enjoying her affection.
More Than Ten Years
For more than ten years, McKenna was part of the life Trish and I shared. We were Nana and Grandad, but our days also held the responsibilities of raising her. We worried about her, guided her, enjoyed her, and loved her.
When I look back at our home during those years, I want to remember McKenna there too. I can still picture her coming through my office door, putting her arms around my neck, and telling me she loved me. I remember the little girl who did puzzles with Nana and wrote that they would make a perfect team.
She belongs in the story of our life together. Her middle name was Joy, and for more than ten years she brought that joy into our home. She was our McKenna. My Little Sugar-buger.