10 Grandmas Whose Kindness Became the Heart of the Family

Grandmas come in all kinds of packages: soft, strict, funny, stubborn, mischievous, or quietly heroic. But no matter their style, they leave fingerprints on our hearts in ways no one else can. These real stories show just how much love, strength, humor, and grit grandmothers carry with them... and how deeply their families feel it.

• My maternal grandma was a farm wife who taught herself to cook after she got married. Her 9 grandchildren loved her farm breakfast.
  Bacon or sausage. Oatmeal. Eggs cooked to order. Bisquick biscuits or blueberry muffins. Even as teens and young adults, we dragged ourselves out of bed to have her breakfast. © ParticularYak4401 / Reddit

• When I was little, around four, I would walk up to my grandma and say, “Granny, can we go to the fairies?” Then she would take me to a really cool place in her garden, where she had grown vines to form a roof.
  She placed a napkin down and told me to go inside and come back in a couple of hours. When I did, there would be freshly baked treats on the napkin. Twenty-two years later, I still think about it. © iminyourhouse*** / Reddit

• When I was about 4 years old, my grandma came for a visit. She brought chocolate along. I love chocolate. My mom forbade me from eating it.
  A few days later, my mom left me with my grandma while she and my dad ran some errands. As grandparents do, she always spoiled me and let me have as much chocolate as I wanted. Suddenly, my parents returned. I began to cry, my mouth filled with delicious, prohibited chocolate.
  It was then that my grandma bestowed upon me one of life’s most enduring lessons. Roughly translated (my grandma didn’t speak English), “If you put it in your mouth, they can’t take it away from you.” © lauramonster / Reddit

• My grandma is not particularly sassy or hardcore, but a few years ago, she had some chest pain. A few weeks later, she was at the hospital for her usual medical reasons, and the doctor asked her if she was aware that she had had a heart attack in the last few months. She didn’t even suspect til the doctor told her, and she was even WORKING at our family’s golf course the day it happened. © Unknown User / Reddit

• The funniest memory:
  Grandmother was very artistic and creative. She made a “scarecrow” for their garden that looked exactly like my grandfather (even his legs and midsection)! When people saw it (who didn’t know that she crafted it to look like him), they’d tell her, “That scarecrow looks amazingly like your husband!” © Unknown User / Reddit

• My grandmother and I were in Walmart when we were looking at dog toys (she enjoys spoiling my parents’ dog). I was kind of meandering when I looked behind me and noticed my grandmother was hunched over with tears falling to the ground.
  I immediately ran over because I thought something was wrong, but when I got to her, she was holding this squeaky pig, and all she could muster out between breaths was, “It sounds like a fart!” So for the next 10 minutes, my grandmother and I stood in the aisle laughing til we cried because this toy pig sounded like a fart. © Thunder_F***s / Reddit

• I have a Scottish granny; I’m Scottish too, and she’s the nicest person in the whole entire world. I honestly don’t think there is anyone in the world who is as caring as she is. She’s 85 and will drive over two hundred miles to come and see me a few times a year (I have health issues and don’t drive otherwise; I’d go and pick her up), and she still buys me my winter jacket every year despite the fact that I’m a fully grown adult.
  I rarely hear her say a bad word about anyone, and if she does, it’s usually justified. She’ll also go out of her way to help people as much as she can. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say no if I’ve asked for help with anything, and she’s constantly offering help with everything. I love her so much.
  About 17 years ago, we went on holiday together, and she took me to a zoo where there was also a huge obstacle course with nets you climb through suspended high in the air, climbing walls, etc. She did the entire thing with me. Growing up I didn’t really have a mum, not a good one that cared about me in any way or was ever nice to me, so the bond I have with my gran really helped me. © girl-lee / Reddit

• My grandma fully raised my sisters and me, helped my grandpa (her ex-husband) when he had a heart attack, dealt with my aunt, her son, my mom and her boyfriend, and her eldest child with mental problems. She had a rough childhood.
  She convinced me to go to my high school graduation, she bought my cap and gown, and said, “Too late.” I had to make up absences at lunch detention so I could walk despite still graduating. She died 10 hours after graduation from stage 4 cancer. She was already weak at that point and couldn’t make it.
  People always think I’m exaggerating when I say, “She was my mom and dad in one.” But when I see the photo of her and me at my dog’s obedience training when I was in 6th grade, all chubby and short. I know it’s true. © Unknown User / Reddit

• Grandma had this old biscuit tin everyone joked about because it never had cookies, only her sewing kit. We’d open it hoping for treats and find needles and thread instead. She always laughed but warned us not to mess with it. When she passed, I kept the tin because it reminded me of her more than anything else.
  One day my cat knocked it over, and while picking everything up, I noticed a thin envelope taped to the bottom. Inside was a note in her shaky handwriting: “If you found this, it means you loved me enough to keep this little tin. My life was hard, but never poor, because I had all of you. I saved what I could to make your life a little easier.”
  Under it was a tiny bank book filled with years of small deposits. That tin never held biscuits. It held every spare coin she quietly saved for us.

• I grew up an orphan, and my grandma was the only family I had. She was strict and sharp-tongued, never the soft kind of grandma people picture. She scolded me for crying, woke me up before sunrise, and called everything “too expensive.”
  But no matter how tough she sounded, she always made sure I ate first. With my first paycheck, I bought her a warm winter coat, but she snapped that I was wasting money. It stung, but I told myself that was just how she was.
  After she passed, I was sorting her things when I found the coat in her closet, perfectly folded and still brand new. In the pocket was a small note: “I saved this for you. I did not wear it so you could live warmer than I did. I am sorry I was too harsh.”
  I cried right there. She didn’t know how to show love, but she loved me more than I ever realized.

Grandmas may be some of the kindest, toughest souls we know, but not every family story is so heartwarming. If you enjoy a little drama too, you’ll love this compilation of mothers-in-law who definitely know how to stir the pot.