I don’t know if this is the right sub for this, but I’ve been having and extremely confusing experience in the wake of my grandfathers death. My immediate family is from NYC, I grew up in Brooklyn with my parents and sister. My grandfather lived alone upstate on a large woodsy property and we would visit him frequently when I was a kid. He was in his mid 60s and very active at the time. Being a city kid, I loved spending time with him outside. He taught me everything about maintaining a property, yard work, and perfecting a lawn. He kept a gorgeous property, and did everything completely on his own. I liked the quality time with him too, he used to tell me unlimited old baseball stories and tales from his time in Vietnam. He’d give me shit for being a Mets fan.
Once I went to high school and got involved in sports on the weekends, we unfortunately started to go up to see him less and less. By the time I went to college, we no longer went upstate at all. And shortly thereafter, he developed dementia. My parents put him in a nursing home just outside the city for a few years, while leaving his property unused. Sadly, he passed last month.
The property was passed by will to my mother. We buried him 3 weeks ago, and went up to his property the following weekend to check on the state of things and mourn. When we got there, I hadn’t realized how long it’s been since I had been. I also realized how much his death was going to hurt. One of the first things I did was wonder the property, remembering all the little details of the tree line and the projects we worked on over the years. I walked deep into the woods where we used to go to dump yard trimmings and sat on a familiar rock. I know he lived a long and good life, but in that moment I felt I didn’t have enough time with him, give enough effort, and cried for the first time since his death.
After I got that out, I began walking back. About half way I heard a branch snap behind me. I looked and saw nothing, but then heard a call for my name. It was my grandfathers voice. I began to panic thinking I was going insane. Then my grandfather came walking up the path just from where I was just walking. He was wearing his old clothes, and looked how he did when I was a kid and he was in his 60s.
He spoke to me about some yard work that needed to be done, and asked if I’d be willing to drive to Home Depot for mulch. Mulch! I told him that I saw him dead in a coffin and buried the week prior. He asked me how it was possible for him to be standing and talking to me then. I felt like I was delusional and that this was some kind of brain trick to help me cope with his death. I don’t know. I turned around and walked back to the house. He called my name a few times and acted how he would have back in the day, but I ignored it and kept walking. When I got back to the house, I didn’t mention any of this to my parents or sister. We didn’t discuss much if anything that night, it was a sad night for us all, and we went to sleep early.
The next morning I woke up to my family sorting his photo albums on the kitchen table. My mother mentioned something about him playing football in high school. I brought up his love for baseball and the Yankees. Both of my parents were baffled by this and didn’t know where I came up with that. I told them of all the time he lectured me on the beauty of the game and how the Mets were terrible and Mickey Mantle was king. They claimed that he in fact notoriously hated baseball, claimed his whole life in that it was a boring, terrible sport. I was extremely confused at this point. This sparked a conversation that let to them telling me that he was also never in Vietnam, or the military at all for that matter. And the kicker, they claim that he rarely would work in the yard and hated doing so. They said he paid people to maintain it during the week when we weren’t there!
Right now I feel that I’m completely insane, made up half of my own childhood, and need to be institutionally committed. I’m still absolutely heartbroken that the grandfather I thought I knew and that I loved, is not the man who everyone else seems to know. I really don’t know where to go from here. Assuming I’m not insane, I don’t know who it was that I was spending my childhood with, but he seems to still be on the property.