Nan got revenge on her ungrateful grandkids from beyond the grave

The room smelt of homemade shepherd’s pie. She cooked this for me often, even though her arthritic hands would spill scolding gravy down her arm and her ailing legs would falter from all the standing while peeling.

The oven, upon opening, steamed her glasses, rendering her temporarily blind. She never once complained or swore though.

She cooked this for all her grandchildren. All except two. And that’s why she was crying.

She shook away the tear with as much stoic dignity as she wiped her glasses or cleaned her scolded arm. ‘It hurts,’ she said, blowing her nose, as she counted the months – and weeks – since she’d last seen them.

These two quasi-estranged grandchildren visited just once a year – on the birthday of their own children, my nan’s great-grandchildren. They’d pick up the presents for the kids (which Nan had always dutifully bought), feign niceties, then leave.

‘What more can I do?’ Nan asked. ‘I just have to accept that’s the way it is.’ Eventually, even those solitary, hour-long annual visits vanished, and she never saw them again.

I couldn’t understand how they could be so seemingly cruel, especially after three of her four adult sons – the third being my dad – had died before she did. She’d outlived almost all of them.

Seeing an elderly mother mourn her adult sons leaves a large lump in your throat. Then witnessing two of her own grandchildren excluding her from their lives just felt beyond sad.

To say she didn’t deserve it was beyond an understatement. Nan was the sweetest, tiniest, yet toughest woman I knew. She was the gentle maternal force in my life. 

She worked in a greasy spoon cafe until she was almost 80. When I’d eat there, she refused my money, and we’d argue as I tried to force a tenner into those shaky, affectionate hands. I’d find it poked into my back pocket on the bus home; a love letter with regal illustration. 

We were unusually close. She was like a second mum to me.

Every year, I’d take Nan ‘up the West End’ of London to see a different musical. Weeks before, she’d use the money she earned from serving fry-ups to buy a new outfit for the trip.

In later years, now in a wheelchair, I’d push her around London and we’d make a day of it: a stroll along the Thames, her wheeling in front of me as we chatted away. I took her to Old Compton Street and explained it was ‘that gay street where I go out’.

When I came out to her as gay as a teenager, she did her best to understand with gentle, innocent questions, and a reassurance of unconditional love. In the years afterwards, she welcomed every boyfriend with those same, shaky, open arms. As if he, too, was her biological grandson.

My cousins weren’t the only ones to make Nan cry. The day I told her, in 2012, that I was moving to Australia, she could barely speak. ‘As long,’ she gulped the first outburst down, ‘as you,’ her throat choked up as her devastation overwhelmed her restraint, ‘are happy’.

Then the tears she could no longer hold back fell in torrents down her creased face as she croaked out: ‘I’m really going to miss you’. We hugged as if we’d never see each other again. 

We did, of course. I wasn’t going to let 17,000km get in the way of our annual West End trip; I’d fly home annually to take her, and we’d talk every few weeks over FaceTime in between. I think we saw every single long standing musical in London, once a year, every year, for almost 20 years.

Nan was 83 when she packed up her wheelchair and flew solo from the UK to Australia to stay with me for three weeks. We hugged koalas and I sailed her under the Harbour Bridge. 

I couldn’t replace the sons she’d lost. But on that trip, our uniquely close bond was taken to a new level. As we grieved together over my dad’s sudden death in 2015, I became closer than her grandson.

I became a surrogate son to her. She shared things with me she said she hadn’t told anyone, and that I will take to the grave.

This sweet, tiny woman took matters into her own hands

But her estranged grandchildren were a wound that wouldn’t heal. After all the grief and loss, she was heartbroken at being denied the opportunity to see new life – her own great-grandkids grow up.

And so, this sweet, tiny woman took matters into her own hands. Just like the recent story of an upset grandad who – disappointed his grandchildren didn’t visit him – left them just £50 each of his £500,000 fortune, my nan chose to write them out of her will.

By the time she’d told me, she’d already decided. I was very careful not to influence her. ‘Do what’s right for you,’ was all I said. The following week, it was done. 

A funny thing happened afterwards. Her tears came less frequently. It was as if the more upsetting thing wasn’t the resignation of despair, but the torment of hope.

The act of disinheritance had ended her disempowerment. It was a brave act of self-care. But a sad one nonetheless.

After staying in Nan’s tiny spare room, on and off over six months in the UK in 2019, the time came for me to say goodbye all over again as I returned to my newfound home in Sydney. 

All the grief and pain accumulated over the years came pouring out; we hugged; we cried; it felt almost unbearable, leaving her, after we’d built up this closeness after six months of glorious proximity.

The last image I have is of her clutching a tissue and trying – and failing – to hold back the sobs, that tiny shaky hand waving from her porch as I headed to Heathrow.

At the airport, just before boarding, I received a message from her beloved neighbour. ‘Try not to worry. But just to let you know your nan’s in hospital’. She’d worked herself up into such a state, it’d put a strain on her poor, broken heart. 

‘Should I come back?’ I asked, panicked. 

‘It’s up to you. We’re taking care of her’. I saw the last call flash up for my plane. I ran on before I changed my mind, tears dripping off my face, flicking onto my arms and onto others who sat in economy for the first horrible hours of that 24 hour flight.

She never left that hospital. Nan died shortly afterwards. So, two weeks after flying to Sydney, I flew back to the UK to deliver her eulogy. 

My cousins who were written out of her will didn’t attend her funeral, even though they lived 30 minutes away. I flew 24 hours to pay my last respects. 

I’ve never seen nor spoken to them since they stopped seeing Nan, so I don’t know how they would’ve felt when they found out they’d been disinherited. But, I feel sorry for them. 

They didn’t just miss out on money. They missed out on so much available love.

The moral of the story is: Visit your grandparents. Not because you want to be in their wills. Because they need to know you love them. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

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