The only thing I absolutely had to do was complete a shadow episode of a soap opera called "Port Charles." (TV soap producers give writers a chance to write a future episode of a specific show -- a shadow episode -- to see if they have the smarts to make it in daytime soaps.) My episode was due on Oct. 6. It was Sept. 24 already.

So while my grandmother lay dying downstairs, I was upstairs writing lines like: "That bathrobe looks very familiar!" and "You're inviting me over? This is a first." Stage Directions went something like, "ON RACHEL, VERY PLEASED WITH HERSELF."

Watching Aunt Sally take care of her dying mother was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever experienced. She taught me how to change GrandMary, massage her legs with cream, give her morphine, clean the bedsores on her back. The room had a sickly sweet smell. When I arrived it had been an Indian summer, but as the week wore on the temperatures dropped, rain fell, and the leaves changed suddenly to a gorgeous burnt raspberry-gold we never see in Los Angeles. I would open her window wide just to let her breathe fresh air, but someone always closed it after I left, fearing the farm insects.

My father, who'd also flown in by this time to be with his mother, warily agreed to babysit each day for one hour while I wrote the soap. I would also write at night and during Norah's naptime. Being a father of the '60s, this was his first experience as a childcare provider. He loved to cook, so I suggested he cook with Norah on his chest in the baby Snugli. His response: "Goddamn! You want me to cook and wear her in a harness?" My sister said over the phone, "Dad cooking and wearing Norah? That sounds dangerous."

He opted for walks instead, so I'd put Norah in the stroller for him, loading the baby tray with an array of goldfish crackers, chopped apple bits, bananas, Cheerios. He'd push her up and down the driveway with Rush Limbaugh blasting on his radio headphones.

In the mornings, I would give GrandMary some Cream of Wheat. A friend of Aunt Sally's, Sharon, had brought over a box, remembering that it was the only thing her mother ate when she was dying. GrandMary loved it, and the first several mornings, she ate whole bowls of the cereal. One morning, she asked me, "Does your show have a lot of curse words?" I said, "No. None." She smiled. Then she turned and asked my aunt, "Do you have time to work on your scripts while you're here?"

Aunt Sally, said, "I'm not Kerry, Mom. I'm Sally."

Oh, of course," said GrandMary. Then she asked, "What are you all doing here anyway? Don't you have jobs?"

Each day with my grandmother was like a year, she slipped that much. It was difficult to understand her, so I'd often ask her to repeat herself. She told me to have another child. At that moment, Norah was scaling the hospital bed, pushing buttons, grabbing the ice chips. She'd just knocked over an entire vase of flowers. I replied, "Another one?" There was no way I could make such a promise. Later in the day, GrandMary told me to return to the Catholic faith. Then she looked at me and said, "I don't know why you're here, but you're a godsend."

One night, she whispered, "They couldn't understand me." She was referring to her neighbors who'd been in to visit her. She added, "I couldn't understand myself." She also kept asking about the children. "Where are the children? Who has the children? Are the children safe?" Then one morning, she glared at us and cried, "If any harm comes to the children, I will personally blame all of you."

When a hospice social worker came to counsel us, she told us not to be afraid to talk about death; that now it was like a dance, and GrandMary was waiting for us to make a move. She also told us that a sign of death is when the ear lobes begin to retract, though no one knows why this happens. During this meeting, my father was in the kitchen. He uses profanity the way most people breathe. I don't even hear it anymore, but there soon came a loud, "You sorry son-of-a-bitch!"

My aunt stiffened and blushed. She said apologetically, "I think he's listening to the radio." The hospice worker didn't bat an eye.

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