Every family has secrets. A little white lie or inconvenient truth that’s kept on the down-low in order to make Thanksgivings and other gatherings proceed as smoothly as possible (which is to say not very, but at least nobody breaks out into a fistfight). Some family secrets are wilder than others, though, as one woman discovered when she learned about a long con her relatives had played on her grandfather.
TikTok user @allasondrasbeenhere left jaws on the floor when she shared the story of her relationship with her blind grandpa. A biracial woman, Allye’s mother was from a, let’s say, highly conservative white family based in Minnesota, so she elected not to tell them about the ethnicity of her partner and therefore her baby until the baby was born. Despite any misgivings her family might’ve had about their granddaughter, Allye notes that her maternal grandpa adored her.
The two of them were “best friends, inseparable, really” when Allye was a little girl, so she got a big shock when the topic of her grandpa’s blindness came up at a recent family dinner celebrating her grandmother’s birthday. Finding out that her grandpa lost his sight in 1995, a year before she was born, Allye suddenly came to a startling realization. “Did anyone ever tell him that I wasn’t white?” she asked. You can probably guess where this is going…
“This man had no idea!” she reveals. “That the grandchild that was his favorite, that he spent all of his time with, that lived with him, wasn’t white. And if he had, I don’t think I would’ve been at the top of the list, and to this day that just blows my mind.”
As much as this is a lot to process, Allye clearly still remembers those early years with her granddad with affection, as she writes in her caption: “still love you the gramps.” In the comments, she further clarifies that her grandfather died when she was only four, which is why she had never put two and two together before now.
Other comments are a mix of typical TikTok humor and people genuinely astonished by this family secret to top all family secrets. “This is wild to contextualize I can only imagine for you having to live it,” someone sympathized, as another joked. “bro said I don’t see color, but if I hear it!” Others had a more heartwarming takeaway from the story: “My grandpa was blind since I was born, I am the oldest. The man would hug me and know I got a hair cut, I bet he knew. My gramps knew when I was sneaking food lol. He loved you anyways.” On the other hand, some took a more pragmatic view; “A win is a win!”
Hopefully that penultimate comment has got it right. This is such an enormous thing to never have reached his attention, and if Allye’s grandpa loved her that much then we’d like to think he knew of her ethnicity all along but just never vocalized it. He might have been one of the 1 million people in the U.S. who are legally blind (with 7 million being partially blind), but that doesn’t mean he was blind to the truth.
Published: Dec 11, 2024 03:13 pm