u/SpaceWormy

I (27yo 2.5 years hrt) have been helping my mother with her parents the last few months. Grandmother is very progressed into Alzheimer’s. Grandfather has metastatic prostate cancer and is currently in hospice care. They both moved from Florida up to Michigan in April and I quit my job to be there for my mom. They moved into my mom’s finished basement and we have been taking care of both of them mostly on our own for 3 months.

My grandma doesn’t remember who anybody is, she only remembers my mom most of the time and gets her husband mixed up with her father more often than she recognizes him. Grandpa is cognitively there. Except the fact that he is adamant that he will sit on the couch and watch Fox News until he dies. It’s baffling to me that a man can be so dedicated to hating people that it’s the only thing keeping him alive.

I don’t really try to look femme around them. Because I know that grandma isn’t going to know what’s happening and will just question why a “strange man is wearing a dress”. Goes without saying that grandpa doesn’t support me or have any interest in knowing me anymore. He only lets me come around at this point because he has no other choice. He needs help moving around and I’m someone who will help him get to the bathroom. He uses my chosen name, but I think it’s only because he doesnt realize it’s different than my old name and nobody will remind him.

On Mother’s Day this year grandpa told my mom that he didn’t want me near him anymore and that she needed to care for him alone. Like I’m gonna spread trans spores on him. He also didn’t want me seeing my grandmother anymore, and I’m the person in the family that has the easiest time getting through to her. That only lasted for a few weeks before he realized that my mom can’t spend all her time waiting to help him get to the bathroom.

Now I sit quietly and try not to cry watching insane people on a fake news network talk about forced detransitioning clinics in Texas. I fucking hate Smeg Buttfeld.

My grandmothers younger sister (my great aunt) is in town to visit right now. She’s cool but I don’t think she’s ever met a trans person before so she’s making a lot of mistakes. Normally I would have patience to explain these things to people. Especially because my great aunt is a left leaning lady who has always been supportive. She says things like, “Look, all the boys are wearing shorts and the girls are wearing pants” and I look down at my cutoff shorts and kinda well up a bit.

She also came up to me and wanted me to explain to her “how all this gestures to my boobs happened” I told her to buy me a margarita and I’ll tell her all about the trans experience.

I can handle these things alone. One at a time is ok. Getting it from all angles makes me not ok. It makes my mom sad to know that I’m being treated poorly while I’m trying to help her. I try to not let her know when I’m hurting. I never snap at anybody. I do cry on my drive home.

I’m lucky that I can be here for them. I’m lucky that my mom loves me and accepts me for who I am. I’m just so ready for this era of our lives to be in the past. I’m ready to attend a funeral and cry and go back to work and I feel so unbelievably guilty about that.

Edit: grandpa and grandma are currently locked in a loop of her asking him who I am and him saying “that’s Vicki’s son” over and over and it’s starting to feel like I’m getting smacked in the back of the head every time he says it.