Family drama can be some of the messiest, and most all-consuming drama you come across in your life. Because, by their very nature, family members are all interconnected. Unlike your colleagues or friends, in a family everyone knows everyone, and if you happen to live with your family, these things can be quite difficult to get away from.

When divorce is the drama in question, it might feel like it shakes up everything. Not only might the roots of your family be broken or divided in two, you might feel the need to take sides, or police other family members who are taking sides. Suddenly everything is more complicated. Whose house do you spend the holidays at? Will you still get to see your loved ones, or will they move away? And why does grandma suddenly have beef with someone about something seemingly only tangentially related?

But when it comes down to it, family should still be family, no matter what is going on. So when the grown child in this story and their recently-divorced mom found out that their dad’s father was soon to pass away, they dropped all family drama and headed to his bedside. But for some family members, this situation was more confusing than it was comforting, leading to a confrontation that nobody expected.

Read on to find out what happened.

Am I overreacting to my aunt now complaining about the time my mom and I spent with her family?

My parents have been divorced for quite some time. They kind of speak, but they haven’t seen each other in person since the divorce.

My grandfather from my dad’s side is in his last days. My aunt (father’s sister) stays in contact with my mother and called her up to tell her that. My mom instantly made a trip to a different state to see them.

Now, my mother had also been told, a little before the call about my grandfather, that her cousin was given two months to live due to cancer. In addition, my uncle (mom’s side) has been in and out of the hospital and has not been doing well. All of these people live in the same state.

So my mother told my aunt that she was going to spend two days with my grandfather and then hop around between family members because she’s going to say her goodbyes. My aunt was like “I get it. Do what you need to do.”

But these visits between relatives did not go so well.

Later, I was on the phone with my aunt and she started to complain about us visiting. We drove 24 hours and went to see my grandfather that day, had dinner and spent the evening with them. They told us to come the next day for dinner… DINNER!!! At 4 pm is when they told us to come. So because of that we went over for dinner.

But on that second day, my aunt had an attitude. Everyone was tired and went into their rooms, leaving us alone in the kitchen. My mom was then able to talk to my dad for an hour. And all of a sudden my aunt is saying that my mom’s agenda was to see my dad.

This was not true, because my dad didn’t want to see my mom and my mom didn’t care to see him because she wasn’t there for that. But my dad wanted to see me and it was as an opportunity to have closure for them – as well for myself since I’m still healing from that divorce.

It was definitely needed for all of us.

And that wasn’t the end of the aunt’s complaints.

To top it off, my aunt kept asking when we were going to leave, so it felt like we weren’t really welcomed. Her reasoning for that was because she was “tired” and was “arguing with my grandfather” and she was “annoyed and drained”.

We truly did not feel welcomed the second night. I then told her that we were rushed and they told us dinner at 4 pm and she said, “no that doesn’t mean to come for dinner. That means you come in the morning and spend the whole day.” To top it off, she had a doctor’s appointment that day and had errands to run with my grandfather, so we got there when they told us to.

I even told her, to remind her, that I live in a different state and since they moved and I learned of the diagnosis of my grandfather a few years back, I always go visit them once a year. We got into it a bit, but overall ended on good terms as we always do.

Am I overreacting, or is she right that we needed to be there all day when that wasn’t discussed?

The trouble here is that there are a lot of people who are probably quite stressed out and trying to hold it together, whilst watching people they love suffering and passing away.

That isn’t an easy thing for anyone to deal with, without even considering complicated family dynamics.

Should everyone have been clearer about timings? Absolutely. Is this an issue to be held against one another down the line? Absolutely not.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person empathised with the aunt’s difficult time.

Though others were less empathetic.

Meanwhile, this person thought the family had managed their time well in visiting everyone.

The loss of a close family member is something that everyone has to go through at some point in life, but likely wouldn’t wish even on their worst enemy. At the moments when it feels like your world is falling apart as you watch a loved one live their final days, it can also feel like there is so much you need to take care of.

From ensuring that your loved one is comfortable in their final days and hours, sometimes even pushing for them to get the healthcare and support that they so desperately need, to keeping other family and friends informed, it can be a full time task. And that’s before you even start having to think about a funeral.

All this leaves very little time for you to deal with your own grief – because sure they might not have passed yet, but when you know it’s coming you naturally start grieving, and all those feelings can’t just be pushed away to deal with when it’s more convenient. Because if you do that, you’ll inevitably end up snapping when you least expect it, and someone you care about might get caught in the crossfire.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman whose family says they support her art career, but they still don’t want to pay her for product.