The death of her grandfather changed her life forever – It was the worst day of her life
Someone passing away is always considered a very tragic and sad event. The logistics that come with planning a funeral can be exhausting and a lot to take on for the bereaved. Especially when family members don’t see eye to eye on the kind of farewell they want to give their loved ones. Or if the will of the deceased reveals some dark family secrets.
For Nancy, a young woman with a loving heart, the passing of her grandfather was the worst thing that could ever have happened to her. Or so she thought. She never would have guessed that the passing of her beloved papa was only the beginning of the worst day of her life.
Best friends
He was the perfect grandfather: an old, wrinkly man with gray hair and a gray beard. His deep voice rang through the halls of the large house he used to live in with Bertha, Nancy’s grandmother. Nancy loved him and he loved her. After her grandmother died, Nancy spent all the time she had after school, hanging out with grandpa Tuck. That’s what she would call him because he always wanted to tuck her in at night. They’d bake cookies, play in the garden, go out on special trips.
They were the best of friends and they still would have been if what was about to happen could have been avoided. If only Nancy knew before.
Jealous
Growing up, Nancy wasn’t an only child. She had two brothers; Kevin and Mickey. But none of them were as close to their grandfather as she was. Nancy was grandpa’s special girl and it stayed that way well into her adult years. He was there to watch sad movies together when she got dumped by her first boyfriend and he was there at her graduation, sitting in the front row. Nancy’s mother was a hard-working single woman and their family did not have a lot of money to spend so her grandfather was the father she never had but always needed.
All to the dismay of her older brother Kevin. He never liked the relationship that Nancy shared with grandpa Tuck. Grandpa tried to involve the boys in the games he and Nancy played but Mickey and Kevin never really got as close to grandfather as they wanted. Especially Kevin felt like he was missing out on precious grandfather-grandson bonding time. He was jealous.
But Nancy never expected his jealousy to lead to what happened next.
Sickbed
Grandpa was a very active man. Not only did he play with his grandchildren whenever he could, he also tried to stay active when the kids were at school. He liked to go bike riding, sailing, hiking; he always said he got restless whenever he had to stay in one place for too long. That is why he tried to travel when he could. Because of his active lifestyle, Nancy never thought much about his age. She kept forgetting that he was already 83 and she had never worried about his health before so when he got sick, it came as a complete and shocking surprise.
Grandfather got pneumonia during one of his outside adventures. Nancy, who was living a pretty care-free life before that, felt like the world was falling apart around her. She wanted to take care of grandpa, to be there for him when he needed it. But her boss would not let her take the days off she needed to nurse him back to health. Luckily, her brother Kevin was out of a job at that moment. He would be the one to take care of their grandfather.
But that decision might have had devastating consequences.
Daily check-ups
Every day, Nancy visited her grandfather and Kevin. Every day she watched her grandfather lose a little of his strength and the playful glimmer in his eye slowly fading away. She felt completely powerless. She knew that Kevin was doing all he could and still she felt the need to blame someone. Every time she was there, she picked a fight with her brother. “You have never loved him like I have, I should be the one looking after him.” Nancy reproached her brother, trying to lose the feeling of guilt she had.
The daily check-ups stressed her brother out too. He wanted Nancy to leave them alone. He knew how she felt about their grandfather but this was the one time he could help the old man and he did not want this opportunity for bonding to be ruined by his sister. Mickey, their youngest brother, barely visited. He lived in New York City and the flight out was just too much of an effort for him. Nancy felt all alone in her grief. She was losing her best friend and she did not know what to do about it.
If only she could have seen what was actually going on…
Too much responsibility
Even though Kevin was taking care of grandpa Tuck day and night, he did not seem to improve. Nancy convinced her brothers and her mother that their grandfather might need professional care. So they asked his nurse to stop by more regularly. He stopped by every morning and evening to help Kevin with the day to day activities like getting the old man dressed and making sure he stayed warm.
One day, Kevin came home smelling of alcohol. He had been out all day and Nancy had assumed he was with their grandfather but now she wasn’t sure. He couldn’t have been drinking while also taking care of grandpa, could he? It was clear that Kevin was drunk. Nancy started yelling at him but Kevin acted like he didn’t hear her. He walked straight past her and fell face down into the couch.
A feeling of dread washed over the young woman as she watched her brother sleep. She knew something was horribly wrong but she never would’ve guessed what was about to happen.
Bad news
The call came after dinner. Kevin was still on the couch, sleeping, when the phone rang. It was the nurse; their grandfather had passed away. The day that Nancy had been dreading for so long had finally come. And she felt completely heartbroken. The nurse told them that their grandfather had passed away during the day. He had wandered outside of the house to sit in the garden. That is where his nurse had found him.
Nancy was confused. Why was grandfather out in the garden? How long had he been sitting there? And most importantly: why was Kevin not there to keep this from happening? A thought slowly crept up in her mind. No… it couldn’t be… Nancy shook her head. She did not want to think about this. She did not want to entertain the possibility that her grandfather passing away might not have been an accident. It all just seemed so strange. There were so many unanswered questions.
And there were about to be even more. Because what happened next changed Nancy forever.
Saying goodbye
It rained on the day of the funeral. Their grandfather was dressed in his finest clothes but he looked different than the man in the pictures on Nancy’s phone. Everyone was there to say their goodbyes. Grandfather had been a very well-loved man. Even Mickey had gotten on a plane to say his final goodbye to the man who practically raised them. Kevin was there too. He had not been himself since the day they got the news. Nancy noticed the bags under his eyes, his breath that smelled like whiskey and his trembling hands. He hadn’t been home much these days and Nancy barely saw him anymore. She did not care.
All that mattered to her now, was her grandfather. She looked at the old man in the casket. The kind smile on his lips and the hair that had turned white in the past weeks during his illness. A tear fell down her cheek. And another. Before she knew it, she was crying. All the memories came back to her now. Her mother stood next to her and put her hand on her back. The gesture felt empty. Nobody knew what Nancy was going through, because none of them had to live without their best friend. She looked at grandpa’s hands, neatly folded on his stomach.
That’s when she noticed something. Something that was completely out of place.
An odd object
Nancy knew her grandfather better than anyone. Why wouldn’t her mother and brother listen to her? “You’re imagining things, honey. It’s just the grief talking. You want things to be different but they aren’t. He’s gone.” Nancy couldn’t believe that her mother and Mickey did not see what she was seeing. Were they that blind? Had they never paid attention to grandpa Tuck before? Something wasn’t right and Nancy was bent on figuring out what it was.
The one person who had suspiciously gone missing during the funeral, was Kevin. Where did he go? Nancy had a feeling that all of this had something to do with him. The suspicions she had, came back up again. Could Kevin have played a role in the passing of their grandfather? She had to find out what happened. This strange thing she noticed while looking at her grandfather in the casket made her even more determined to do so.
But she never expected to find out what she did as soon as she started digging.
A bold move
Nancy looked at the strange ring in her hands. She had never seen it before and it felt cold to the touch. She shuddered while thinking how she got it. She hated the fact that she had stolen the ring off of her grandfather’s body while he lay there in his casket, peacefully. She wasn’t proud of what she had done but because this ring had never been on her grandfather’s hand before, she felt it was some kind of sign. So she took it.
Slowly, she turned the ring around in her hands. She held it up to the light just to see if she could find some kind of clue. What she saw next, almost made her drop the ring.
Looking for clues
The words kept ringing through her head as she drove to her grandfather’s house. The ring was in her pocket and she kept touching it to make sure it was still there. It was the answer to all the questions she had. She knew it was.
When Nancy got to her grandfather’s house, she parked her car in the driveway and hurried out of the car. She made her way into the house and looked around. It already looked so different to her. The house always felt like home but now it was cold and dark. She had to fight back the tears that were coming. There was no time to cry. She had to find what she was looking for.
Even though she knew it was going to be bad, nothing could have prepared her for what she found next.
Unfamiliar sounds
She heard a sound, the creaking of the stairs. Nancy felt her heart race. Rationally, she knew it wouldn’t be some ax murderer waiting to kill her. But the alternative was possibly even scarier. She took a few steps back into the hallway to get closer to the stairs. The sound was getting louder and Nancy knew she would soon be standing face to face with the truth. A truth she might not be ready to face at all.
She counted the steps, she knew there were fourteen steps in the staircase and the current count was six. Soon she would be able to see feet coming down and she would know the truth of what happened to her grandfather.
But as she came to learn very soon; Nancy was not ready for the truth that was about to be revealed.
Scared
Nancy caught her breath. The feet were slowly moving down the stairs, unevenly, as if the person was just learning how to walk. Or as if they were drunk. The smell hit her before her eyes adjusted to the face in front of her. It was who she expected but it was shocking nonetheless. Her brother Kevin looked at her in the darkness. She suddenly felt like she should have grabbed something, anything, to defend herself. If her brother was the one who neglected their grandfather out of spite and jealousy, she didn’t know what he would do to her; the person her grandfather loved most.
“I knew you would come.” Kevin’s voice sounded cold and his speech was slurred. Nancy looked at him defiantly. She would not let him see how scared she was. “You knew I would figure it out? The fact that you are responsible?” A look of confusion flashed across Kevin’s face. “Responsible?” he asked. Nancy looked at her brother. He seemed genuinely surprised. Like he did not know what she was talking about. Could she be wrong?
But she never would have expected to hear what her brother told her next.
Accusations
“‘Responsible’? What do you mean?” Kevin slumped against the wall, struggling to keep his posture. He was drunk again. Just like he had been when he was supposed to take care of their grandfather. Nancy fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the ring. “This!” It is proof that you neglected grandpa Tuck on purpose. That you probably even took him out to the garden on purpose and left him there. You always hated the relationship me and grandpa Tuck had. And you always wanted him all to yourself.” Kevin looked even more confused. “That’s what you think? You think I’m some kind of criminal?”
Nancy took a deep breath. She had felt so sure of her suspicion but now she doubted everything. The ring, and the words engraved in it, glistened in the moonlight. “Nancy, 03021988.” Why would her grandfather wear a ring with her name and some random numbers on it for his funeral? What other possible reason could he have for wanting to wear that specific ring that she didn’t even know existed. It could only have been a clue. If only she could figure out what the numbers meant.
But what Kevin said next came as a complete surprise.
A shocking reveal
“Do you know what the numbers mean? The ones that are on the ring?” Kevin moved closer, the lines in his face contoured by the moonlight. He looked very different from her. Nancy never looked much like her family, them all being blonde and her having dark hair. She took after her father, at least that’s what her mother told her. Kevin moved to grab the ring. Nancy let him. “Do you know what the numbers mean, Nancy?” She shook her head. She drew her conclusions as soon as she saw the unknown object. She wanted to believe there was a reason for her grandfather’s death. Any reason at all.
She thought the numbers might be some kind of date. But it didn’t seem like it had anything to do with her. The date 03-02-1988 meant nothing to her. She was born on the twelfth of December in 1989. Her winter birthday was celebrated every year with grandpa Tuck taking her out for hot cocoa. Nancy bit her lip. The memories still hurt.
But the truth that Kevin revealed next would hurt her even more.
The truth
“I shouldn’t be the one telling you this.” Kevin said. He put the ring back in her hand and turned around. “Walk upstairs to grandpa’s study. Then it might all make more sense to you.” With those words he left the house and shut the door behind him. Nancy was all alone again, the house settling down in silence. She walked up the stairs as Kevin told her to, determined to finally find some answers.
In front of the door of grandpa’s study, she waited. They were never allowed to go in there and it felt strange to break that rule. But her curiosity got the better of her and she turned the knob.
She never would have guessed what was waiting for her behind that door.
The last letter
When she stepped into the study, she was overwhelmed with the smell of her grandfather. This room of the house was still his. She immediately felt warmer. As if her grandfather was giving her one of his special hugs. Nancy looked around and took it all in. The chair, the paintings, the pictures of her grandmother, her grandfather and she noticed her own face staring at her, smiling. The picture was an old one from when they went to the fair together.
She also noticed some other pictures of people she didn’t know and one of a baby that looked like her but it was a picture she had not seen before. She turned around and looked at the desk. There was a letter there. Her name was on it, written in the cursive writing her grandfather used. This was it. The last message. Her inheritance and all the answers she’d been waiting for and still it was scary. She picked up the letter and sat down.
If Nancy had known what the letter would say, she might have never opened it in the first place.
The scary inheritance
“Dear Nancy,” the first words in the letter said. “If you are reading this, then that means I have died from my illness. I know you will be sad and I know this will be hard. But I want you to know that it was my own decision. I wanted to go on my own terms. I knew I was becoming weaker and I didn’t want this illness to change me. So I took it upon myself. Don’t blame your brother, he took great care of me while I was sick. And I never should have burdened him with the terrible secret I had been keeping. But someone needed to know before I took it to my grave.”
Nancy stopped reading. She did not know whether she could go on. She felt guilty about Kevin but mostly she felt scared. This wasn’t what she had expected. She wanted this to be a final goodbye. Not some dark family secret.
The next part of the letter would turn Nancy’s life upside down.
Finally some answers
“The ring you are holding is the ring I got from your mother. It is engraved with your name and your date of birth.” Nancy let out a nervous laugh. What was her grandfather talking about? This couldn’t be true! She couldn’t stop reading. “A long time ago, there was a young woman living with me. She was hiding from her abusive husband and I provided shelter. After a month or so, she found out that she was pregnant. Not wanting to tell the father, we decided that it’d be safer to hide the baby. So I gave the little girl, born on the third of February in 1988, to my daughter who had been struggling to get pregnant a second time. The name of the little girl was Nancy.”
Tears were streaming down her face. Nancy couldn’t believe it. Was she the little baby that her grandfather wrote about? This couldn’t be true. This would mean that her whole life was a lie. She just did not want to believe it.
But the shock was about to become even bigger
The biggest secret
“Attached to this letter is your birth certificate. Unfortunately your real mother died a few years after giving birth to you, but I decided that I had to stay close. To make sure you were happy and healthy. Your father does not know you exist.” Nancy couldn’t help but cry. This truth was way more than she could handle. How could her grandfather hide all this from her?
“I told Kevin what was going on. He was very young when you came to live with them and he doesn’t remember. The truth was really hard on him but he loves you very much, just like the rest of your family does. Even though they may not be biologically related to you, you are family. Please remember that.” That was it. The end of the letter. Nancy was in shock.
What she had to do next might be the hardest thing she had ever had to do in her life.
Family
Mickey and her mother looked up from the television when she walked into the living room. She had been crying the whole way home and she probably looked like a mess but she did not care. Grandpa’s letter was in her hand. “Are you okay, honey?” Her mother got up to give her a hug. That is when Nancy broke down.
“I know I’m not really your daughter. I know everything.” She cried. Nancy’s mom started to cry too. “I’m so sorry, Nancy. I am your mother and will always be your mother. I am glad your grandfather finally told you. It was not my secret to share and you were possibly in danger.” Nancy cried until she had no more tears left. Would her life ever be the same again?
What happened next was something Nancy could have never foreseen.
The end
Suddenly she felt arms around her. Her brother Mickey was hugging her too. There was confusion in his eyes but Nancy knew that they would explain everything to him. His unconditional support meant the world to her and she hugged him back.
When they finally ended their embrace, Nancy noticed someone standing in the corner of the room. It was Kevin. They stared at each other for what felt like forever. Then Nancy broke down and rushed towards him. “I’m so sorry, Kev.” Nancy hugged her big brother and he hugged her back. At that moment she knew everything was going to be alright. She might be a different person than she was yesterday, but she was still Nancy and she and her family were closer than ever. All thanks to her grandfather.
