My Grandpa Raised Me Alone – After His Funeral, I Learned His Biggest Secret

My friends all had new phones, but mine was an ancient brick that barely held a charge.

It was an awful, selfish anger, the kind that made me cry hot tears into my pillow at night, hating myself for hating him, but still unable to stop the resentment. He told me I could be anything I wanted, but that promise started to feel like a lie.

Then Grandpa got sick, and the anger was replaced by a deep, sickening fear.

The man who had carried my whole world on his shoulders suddenly couldn’t walk up the stairs without gasping for air.

We couldn’t afford a nurse or caregiver (of course, we couldn’t, we couldn’t afford anything), so I took care of him alone.

“I’ll be okay, kiddo.

It’s just a cold. I’ll be up and kicking next week. You just focus on your final exams.”

Liar, I thought.

“It’s not a cold, Grandpa.

You need to take it easy.

Please, let me help.”

I juggled my final semester of high school with helping him get to the bathroom, feeding him spoonfuls of soup, and making sure he took his mountain of medicine.

Every time I looked at his face, thinner and paler each morning, I felt the panic rise in my chest.

What would become of us both?

One evening, I was helping him back into bed when he said something that disturbed me. He was shaking from the exertion of the short walk to the bathroom.

As he settled down, his eyes fixed on me with an intensity I hadn’t seen before.

“Lila, I need to tell you something.”

“Later, Grandpa.

You’re exhausted, and you need to rest.”

But we never got a “later.”

When he finally died in his sleep, my world stopped. I had just graduated from high school, and instead of feeling excited or hopeful, I found myself stuck in a terrifying liminal space that felt like drowning.

I stopped eating properly.

I stopped sleeping.

Then the bills started arriving — water, electricity, property tax, everything.

I didn’t know what to do with them. Grandpa had left me the house, but how would I afford to keep it?

I’d have to get a job immediately, or maybe try to sell the house just to buy myself a few months of sheer survival before figuring out my next move.

Then, two weeks after the funeral, I got a call from an unknown number. A woman’s voice came through the speaker.

“My name is Ms.

Reynolds.

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