At 6:20 a.m., in a split-level Roanoke County home, Zach Gibson woke up hungry.

"Mom, can I have apple butter biscuits?" the drowsy 7-year-old yelled from under the covers.

"Sure," replied Mary Kinstler.

She put two frozen biscuits in the microwave and then laid out the second-grader's clothes.

Across the valley, a similar routine played out as parents got their children ready for school. But Kinstler, 59, is not Zach's mother. She is his grandmother.

In 2002, Kinstler won legal custody of Zach from her daughter, who suffered from crack cocaine and alcohol addiction and served time in jail.

According to the 2000 U.S. census, Kinstler is one of nearly 60,000 grandparents in Virginia -- and 1,844 in the Roanoke Valley -- who are responsible for their children's children.

Like these other grandparents, Kinstler has returned to a life she assumed was finished long ago. This time, the struggles are different.

Becoming Mom

In 1999, Kinstler watched her 30-year-old daughter give birth to Zach. She cut the umbilical cord. Zach's father has never been in his life.

After his birth, Zach and his mother lived with Kinstler in her Newport News home.

Zach's mother often left for days without saying where she was going. Kinstler, a retired teacher whose second husband died of cancer in 1995, took care of the baby.

Some nights, drug dealers showed up on Kinstler's porch and demanded money. She paid. They returned.

Kinstler says she spent thousands of dollars trying to help her daughter overcome her addictions. Nothing worked.

"I was enabling her," she said. "I was getting lost in what she was involved in. For my own sanity, I had to give up on her."

When Zach was 2, his mother moved in with a new boyfriend and took her son with her. Soon after, Kinstler moved to Northern Virginia to be near her son.

Five months later, Kinstler's daughter's boyfriend called. Zach's mother had left two days earlier to buy batteries. She had not returned. He asked Kinstler to pick up her grandson.

Kinstler drove to Newport News, bought a car seat and took Zach home. She later sued for full custody and won.

Sometime during the next year, Zach began to call Kinstler "Mom." He knows she is not his mother, but Kinstler did not correct him.

"I'm the only mother he has ever known," she said. "It just evolved."

'In my shoes'

Before Zach left for school, Kinstler asked if he had brushed his teeth and checked to make sure his shirt was not on backward. She slid a yellow folder into his backpack and reminded him to bring home his spelling words.

Standing at the screen door, Kinstler watched as Zach waited at the bus stop across the street.

Kinstler has a slight tremor from the onset of Parkinson's disease. Three years ago, she had two mild strokes. Her Baltimore accent is colored with the deep, raspy voice of a former smoker.

While Zach is at school, Kinstler cleans her house, which is filled with Japanese furniture she bought when she lived in Yokohama with her husband, who worked for the Department of Defense.

She exercises at Curves and shops.

At least once a day, she also logs on to kinsupport.org, a Web site for people who are raising family members' children.

In this world, birth parents are referred to as "bios." Online, grandparents vent, exchange tips and offer support.

"I've never met any of these women, but it's like they have walked in my shoes," Kinstler said of her online friends.

Some have it much harder than Kinstler. Many struggle with children who have discipline problems or are emotionally scarred from abuse and neglect.

Because Zach grew up with her, the transition was simple, Kinstler said. She doesn't know what happened when Zach lived with his mother, but so far he seems fine.

Still, there are problems biological parents don't face. Before Kinstler won custody of Zach, she couldn't prove she had the right to sign for his medical care. When she needed his birth certificate, the vital records office would not give it to her without Zach's mother's signature.

Kinstler thinks there will be other struggles in the future. Zach is biracial -- his father is black. As kids get older, they tend to want to be around people like themselves, Kinstler thinks. She wonders if he will have an identity crisis.

"He has told me he doesn't like being brown," she said. "I told him, 'I'd love you if you were purple with pink polka dots.' "

Kinstler rarely talks with Zach's mother, who was released from jail last summer after serving time for probation violations.

Her daughter now has no visitation rights, but the courts could award them to her in the future.

That scares Kinstler, who says she will allow her daughter to take Zach on weekends only if the courts force her.

"In my mind, my daughter is dead," she said. "If Zach wants to have anything to do with her when he's older, that's fine. But that's a decision he will have to make when he is 18."

Kinstler does not trust her daughter to keep Zach safe, but she does let him talk to her when she phones on holidays. Zach calls her his "belly mother." Kinstler keeps photos of her daughter on the wall.

Michael Gibson, Kinstler's 40-year-old son, has watched his mother raise Zach. Kinstler and Zach lived with him in Northern Virginia for three years before they moved to Roanoke to start fresh in 2005.

"They are good for each other," he said. "It gives her a purpose. It gives her a reason to wake up."

Gibson said he would take Zach if Kinstler became too sick to care for him.

Choices

At 2:30 p.m., Zach scrambled off the school bus. Kinstler waited at the door. Zach ran inside and dropped his backpack on the floor.

Zach is a lover of toy cars, a kid who struggles over whether he wants to be a police officer or a truck driver.

School was over. He wanted to play.

Instead, Kinstler searched his bag for the yellow folder and his spelling list. She gave him a pencil and made him write each word, the same way she did with her three grown children.

Then they left for swimming practice.

Kinstler receives $170 a month in federal assistance for Zach. She pays $90 a month for his swimming and karate lessons. This summer, she spent $100 on a week of day camp.

"A 7-year-old eats more than that," she said of the money she receives.

Kinstler is not poor. She owns her home but receives only her husband's pension. After she pays her mortgage, utilities and food costs, she has little money left each month. She keeps $2,000 in a savings fund for emergencies.

This year, she scrimped to buy Zach a $200 basketball and rim for Christmas.

At swimming practice, Kinstler sat on bleachers next to the pool where mothers her daughter's age watched their children swim.

When Zach calls Kinstler "Mom" people give her a perplexed look. They assume she is Zach's baby sitter or grandmother.

"We don't fit in," she said. "We are a unit unto ourselves."

Sometimes Kinstler fantasizes about life without Zach. She would like to travel and date. Older men don't want to date women with children, she said.

Still, she says she never considered not taking Zach.

"Children should not have to pay for the choices their parents make," she said. "Do I get angry? Yeah, sometimes I get pissed."

Time to love

Young parents worry about how their children will turn out. Older parents worry about living to see it, Kinstler says.

She is afraid she might die before Zach grows into a young man. When the house is quiet, she sits down and does the math. When Zach graduates from high school, she will be 70. When he is 30, she will be 82.

There is little time to think about it.

Later that night, Kinstler warmed up Stouffer's lasagna and garlic bread. After dinner, Zach watched "Shark Tale," repeating his favorite lines with the animated characters.

At 9 p.m., Zach put on pajamas printed with brown moose. Kinstler slid his yellow folder into his backpack.

It was time for bed.

Kinstler gave Zach his asthma medicine and tucked him in.

"Where's Leo?" Kinstler asked.

Zach pulled a stuffed lion out from under his blanket.

Kinstler bent over and kissed him.

"Love you," she said.

"Love you, too," Zach replied.

"Love you first," she said.