My Grandmother's Attitude Towards Gay Men

[CJK]

Thought others might find this story about my grandmother and gay men interesting. She was considered pretty liberal in her thinking, but things have changed so much that now she would be canceled...

In the eighties my grandmother began suffering dementia. In late May 1986 she moved into an assisted living facility with around the clock personal care. Thanksgiving week was the first time I was able to visit. She was sitting in the lobby when I got there. After quickly saying hello, I excused myself to go to the bathroom. In that brief moment I noticed her hair was a disaster. It was dyed its usual fake blond in the front but undyed in the back where she could not see. There was a small salon next to the men's room where this abomination must have happened. 

When I returned to my grandmother and her aide in the lobby a man came over. He may have been the most flamboyant man I've ever met. He said how much they enjoyed having my grandmother living there. When he walked away, I asked who he was. My grandmother said he is the hairdresser. I laughed to myself thinking he was responsible for my grandmother's hair.

Fast forward to 1992. My grandmother was moving to a nursing home. My sister, mom, two aunts and I were packing up her apartment and the flamboyant man stopped by to visit like he did every time one of us was there. He said they would miss her and we should still stop by to visit. When he left I said the obvious - he cannot do hair worth crap but the facility was lucky to have a hairdresser who cared about the patents so much. Suddenly the four women were staring at me. My aunt asked, "A what?" I repeated myself. My aunt said, "He is not a hairdresser, he is the director. What made you think he is a hairdresser?" My response, "Grandma told me." To which my aunt said, "He is a gay man. Your grandmother thinks all gay men are hairdressers!"
 

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by CJK

[Epigonos]

Cute story - thanks for sharing it.

[CJK]

I will throw in a few more grandma stories - 

When she was in the nursing home, I went to visit one summer morning. She had a bulletin board with some pictures. I recognized some of the people but not some others. Grandma looked at me at said I looked good for someone who had been dead for forty years. She said a few other odd things. Then I realized the man she was standing with in one of the pics was her late husband. My grandfather died five years before I was born. He was wearing a one-piece full bathing suit. I have his calves, his eyes and his lack of hairline, although he worked one strand all over his head and I shave my head. She thought I was my grandfather. 

Her room had a small TV. Shortly after I got there Regis and Kathy Lee went on the air. Not knowing what to say, I pointed out Suzanne Somers was substituting for KL Gifford. My grandmother looked up and said, "She is an idiot." While everyone insisted she was thinking of someone who slighted her in 1948, I truly believe my grandmother's last lucid words to me were that Suzanne Somers is an idiot. 

Shortly after she got to the nursing home she told me Goldie Hawn visited her. I listened, smiled and nodded. Weeks later my mom mentioned that Hawn's father or grandfather was in the same home and grandma had met her. 

One of the first signs she was getting dementia - She lived in NYC and my aunts lived in DC. She was flying down to visit. My aunt went to the airport to pick her up. No grandma. My aunt waited for several Eastern Shuttle flights. No grandma. Finally someone from the airline called my aunt's partner (my aunt lived with the same woman from 1964 on) and said my grandmother had been riding the shuttle back and forth all day. She would get to National, forget why she was there, fly back to LaGuardia and start the trek over. 

[jeezifonly]

It’s like looking in the mirror through a crystal ball. 

[+ Charlie]

I strongly resemble my father. My mother developed macular degeneration in old age, and by her late 90s she was close to being blind. A few times when I entered her room in the nursing home, she confused me with my father and called me by his name.

My mother had a photo of my father in his early 20s hanging next to her bed in the nursing home. One of the nurses commented to me once, "You were a very handsome young man" (I was in my 60s by then). I accepted the compliment rather than point out that the photo had obviously been taken at least 70 years earlier.