Grandma’s Playing Us Like a Fiddle: A Cry for Help or Just a Clever Ruse?
My name is Emily. I’m 37, married, with a mum who’s 56 and a grandmother—Granny Vera—who’s a spirited 85. We live in a quaint little town in Yorkshire, where winters are bitterly cold and the distance between houses feels endless, especially when you’re racing down icy lanes in the dead of night.
Granny Vera, despite her age, stubbornly clings to her old cottage on the outskirts of town. She flat-out refuses to move in with Mum, even though the offer’s been made a hundred times. “My home is my castle,” she declares, and no one—no one—will drag her away. But lately, her loneliness seems to have got the better of her, and she’s found a rather dramatic way to keep us on our toes.
She’s started ringing us nearly every day, wailing that she’s “feeling dreadful.” Her voice trembles down the line; she moans about her “heart fluttering” or her “legs giving way.” Mum and I, hearts pounding, drop everything and speed over, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Yet every time, without fail, we’re met with the same scene: Granny, miraculously revived, bustling about the kitchen, offering tea and biscuits, cracking jokes like it’s all one big lark. Meanwhile, we’re left standing there, breathless, torn between laughter and exasperation.
We’re exhausted by this charade. Each call lands like a bolt of lightning, but we can’t just brush it off—what if this time it’s real? What if we ignore her and the worst happens? That thought gnaws at us, leaving us no peace. We’re terrified that if we don’t rush over, we’ll never forgive ourselves.
It all began a year ago. I’ll never forget the night Mum and I hurtled through a snowstorm at 4 a.m., barely dressed—me in a ratty t-shirt, Mum in an old coat thrown over her pyjamas. We were convinced we’d find Granny at death’s door, but there she was, grinning like the cat that got the cream, claiming her “blood pressure just got a bit frisky.” Within half an hour, she was digging out her famous raspberry jam and urging us to tuck in. We were stunned, but back then, we chalked it up to a one-off.
We tried to get to the bottom of it. We begged Granny to see a doctor, but she waved us off, muttering about “those quacks just after your pounds.” So, we dragged a GP to her cottage. He checked her over, took her pulse, listened to her heart, and declared her fit as a fiddle for her age. “She just needs more company,” he said, eyeing us meaningfully. “Visit more often, and the calls will stop.” Oh, how wrong he was!
We do try. I live an hour’s drive away; Mum’s a bit closer, but after work, stuck in traffic and knackered, daily visits aren’t doable. Weekends are a tag-team effort—one of us brings groceries and stays for tea, the other helps with the hoovering. Holidays are always spent together, with presents and flowers to cheer her up. But it’s never enough. She wants more—our attention, our nerves, our time.
Mum’s offered her the best room in her house a dozen times, but Granny won’t budge. “I won’t be a burden,” she insists, only to ring us at midnight with another “emergency.” “I’d rather die in my own home,” she says, and it cuts like a knife. But what can we do?
We’ve begged her not to cry wolf. Explained how each false alarm drains us, steals our sleep, frays our nerves. But she either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care. The calls keep coming, and every time, we’re stuck in the same nightmare: go or stay? Believe or dismiss? The fear of getting it wrong paralyses us.
Sometimes I think Granny’s just lonely. She craves warmth, chatter, laughter. Maybe these calls are her clumsy way of pulling us close. But why choose such a cruel method? Why keep us in this endless loop of dread? I don’t have the answers. We love her, but this game is wearing us to the bone. Still, as long as she rings, we’ll go. Because if we don’t, and something happens… well, that guilt would crush us for good.
