(CW: Abuse mention, transphobia mention, this story is really just mostly complicated feelings)

My grandmother is dying, and I don’t know how I feel about that.

I have an amazing family in my life. My sisters especially have each done everything to make me feel safe and comfortable in their lives. Most of my family, when I came out, accepted me for who I was without too much question or hesitation. Even most of the people in my family who didn’t immediately accept me came around fairly quickly. 

The only exception to any of this was my grandmother on my dad’s side. Any attempt at contact from her ended the moment she found out, and all my other family would say was that she ‘needed time’. I didn’t ask, and to be honest I didn’t care. My being trans aside, she wasn’t a good person.

She pressured her family into acting as she desired, doing what she wanted first and foremost. When I was a child and she babysat me she hurt me for not adhering to her specific desires. She tried to convince my father I was the child of another man. She tried to pressure my family into getting rid of any toys or movies that could ‘turn me into a <insert your favorite homophobic or transphobic slur>. 

My parents’ divorce was always a guarantee. Their relationship wasn’t a happy one, and even as a child I could see that plain as day. She was not the source of that, but she was absolutely the match that lit the fire. She thought my mom was a poor match for my father since my mom didn’t respect her enough, so while he was spending his 8 months in prison she took every opportunity to poison their relationship.

When I learned of this, a little over ten years later while in college, I was infuriated. I already had learned not to trust her (she was a deeply conservative and religious woman and I had spent the last five years in the closet out of fear of my family sharing her opinions), but this took the cake for me. Even if she had changed in time, she never once even bothered to apologize to any of my family for the harm her lies caused.

I came out that same year, and was unsurprised at what followed from her. If anything, I was shocked by how tame her behavior was in comparison. I’d expected to get a text with at least one slur, it felt in character to the woman I grew up around.

But instead I was met with silence. No answer as to how she felt one way or another, all I could use was my imagination. For a while I liked to ask myself ‘what would she say to x’, and laugh at how absurd this monster my brain turned her into would respond. 

And those thoughts did have merit. I was advised not to attend family events she attended just to make sure things weren’t ‘too complicated’. It was obvious, even if everyone but my youngest sister (the only other grandchild of hers between my siblings and I) danced around it. When I finally did attend a family reunion despite these warnings, it had been clear that she was trying to disrupt my relationships with everyone else.

But at the same time, part of me wonders if she actually cared that I was a woman, or if she instead cared that I never told her. I told the rest of my family in private conversations, or asked my dad to do so if I wasn’t able to contact someone, but I explicitly did not ask anyone to tell her. She found out when I publicly came out on social media. And for someone like her, that could easily be seen as an insult.

Regardless, she went no contact. I was mostly content to leave things be, these days I barely even think about her because I just don’t need to. But about a month ago, maybe a little more, my dad called and said she asked about me, that she wanted to know I was safe—for the first time in half a decade. My response in the moment was to laugh and ask if it was me she asked about, or <deadname>. He didn’t commit to an answer, so I knew what that meant. I even made a joke about it to my older sister after the call ended.

It made me curious, though. Maybe she was sentimental, maybe, but usually when she picks someone to be her enemy they stay that way for life. That was how it worked with my mom, my cousin’s dad, one aunt, one uncle, and me until this point. It was consistent, it was normal, there was a logic to it.

She asked about me. Me. I both insulted her and revealed myself to be a degenerate of the worst kind, and she was still curious. So I investigated.

She’s dying. I don’t know how long or even what she has, but I know it’s killing her. I know that before the end of this year I’ll probably get a call from my dad telling me she passed away.

There is not a single happy memory in my mind with her in it. I tried to think of some, I even looked through decades old photos for anything, and I came up with nothing. All I can remember is the abuse or the lies. I know good things happened, they must have, but my mind offers me nothing. But I want there to be something. I want to be able to look back on her life, on how I was a part of it, and have something happy to think about, but there’s nothing. 

When she dies, our family will attend her funeral and tell stories about how wonderful or sweet or welcoming she was, and I will never be able to understand any of it. All I will think of are experiences like when she hit a six year old for saying ‘excuse you’ to someone else when they burp. 

I want to be able to mourn her when she goes. To say ‘yeah, she was family’, and I miss her deeply. But I won’t be able to. All I’ll be able to do is wonder if anyone else at the funeral is hiding from the memories that took me years to acknowledge. I’ll wonder if she took one look at my cousin, the only other ‘boy’ in our generation of the family from her perspective, and made sure he wasn’t ‘broken’ like I apparently was.

I’m happy. I have an alright life, doing the job I always wanted to do (if not exactly how I wanted to do it), with family and friends that I adore. I would abandon every last thought I have about her if I could. In another world, I could push all of this aside and accept that no, I don’t think I will mourn or miss her.

But I’m not in that world. I’m in this one, full of messy and complicated feelings that don’t make any sense. Maybe one day they will, but today, right now, all I can think is how I could have changed things to maybe improve our relationship. Even if every fiber of me knows that she doesn’t deserve a single second of my thoughts.