It started subtly. A slight frown, a hand tentatively touching his tummy. Then the cries, sharp and sudden, tearing through the quiet after a family dinner. Every Sunday, same pattern. We’d laugh, we’d eat Grandma’s legendary roast, her famous potatoes, her sweet, thick gravy. Then, within an hour of getting home, the pain would hit him. My son’s belly ached after every family dinner.
At first, I brushed it off. Toddlers get upset stomachs. New foods. Maybe too much dessert. But it became a ritual of misery. His face would contort, pale and clammy, his little body curling into a tight ball as he sobbed into my chest. It’s just a bug, I told myself. He’ll grow out of it. But the “bug” was remarkably consistent, only appearing after Grandma’s dinners.
We saw doctors. So many doctors. Pediatricians, specialists, allergists. We ran tests. Blood work, stool samples, scans. They found nothing. NO ALLERGIES. NO INTOLERANCES. NO PARASITES. The doctors, kind but ultimately stumped, suggested IBS, or anxiety, or just a sensitive gut. A sensitive gut that only acts up after Grandma’s food? The suspicion, once a tiny whisper, grew into a roaring presence in my mind.
Violet Affleck advocates for COVID-19 protections in her UN address, from a post dated September 24. 2025 | Source: Youtube/@theindependent
Grandma, bless her heart, was oblivious. Or so I thought. She’d cluck over him, offer ginger ale, rub his back. “Poor little lamb,” she’d coo. “Must be a touch of something going around.” And I’d smile, forcing the words back down: No, Grandma. It’s not something going around. It’s something IN your house. Something ON your plate.
I started trying to subtly investigate. I’d watch her cook. I’d ask about ingredients. “What’s this herb, Grandma? Is that a new spice?” She’d just wave me off with a smile. “Oh, just my special touches, dear. Old family secrets.” She loved her secrets, her mysterious recipes passed down through generations. They were part of her charm. Now, they were a source of creeping dread.
I tried to limit his intake. “He’s not very hungry today, Grandma,” I’d say, trying to steer him away from certain dishes. But Grandma was relentless. “Nonsense! A growing boy needs his strength! Have some more, darling.” And he, loving her fiercely, would often succumb, forcing down another bite, another spoonful of whatever concoction she’d prepared. My heart would sink, knowing what was coming. The drive home became a silent vigil. The waiting game for the pain to strike.
One Sunday, I made an excuse. “I forgot my purse, Grandma. I’ll just run back in.” I left my son with my partner in the car, promising to be quick. The house was quiet, the scent of roast still lingering. I walked through the kitchen, my eyes scanning, searching for something, anything. And then I saw it. Tucked away in a small, unmarked jar in the back of the spice cabinet. Not a common spice. Not something you’d find in a supermarket. It looked like dried leaves, dark and crumbly, with a strange, medicinal smell.
What is that? A cold knot tightened in my stomach. My grandmother had always been a proponent of “natural remedies,” but this felt different. She’d never mentioned this. I took a small pinch, sniffing it. Bitter, earthy, foreign.
Violet Affleck advocates for COVID-19 protections in her UN address, from a post dated September 24. 2025 | Source: Youtube/@theindependent
I carefully replaced the jar, my mind racing. That evening, as I held my son through another excruciating episode, a new, terrible thought blossomed. Grandma’s secret was the reason. It wasn’t just a secret ingredient. It was something she was deliberately adding. But why? WHY would she hurt her own grandson? My mind reeled. It had to be an accident. A misunderstanding. Maybe it was an old herb, harmless to most, but not to him. It had to be.
The next Sunday, I made sure my son ate only a minimal amount, distracting him, telling him he’d get a special treat later. Still, a small portion of Grandma’s special gravy, her famous roast. And again, the pain. Less severe, perhaps, but still there. It confirmed my worst fears.
I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I drove back to her house later that week, my stomach churning more than my son’s ever had. I found her in the garden, tending to her roses. She smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. The loving, gentle woman who baked him cookies and told him stories.
“Grandma,” I started, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “We need to talk. About… about what you put in the food.”
Her smile faltered. Her eyes, usually so warm, hardened just slightly. “My special touches, dear? Just giving the boy a bit of flavor.”
“No, Grandma. The jar. The dark leaves. What is it? He gets so sick. After every dinner.”
She turned from me, busying herself with a thorny stem. A long silence stretched between us. The air grew heavy, thick with unspoken things. Finally, she sighed, a deep, shuddering sound that seemed to carry years of sorrow.
“It’s a special herb,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “An old remedy. My mother used it. I thought… I thought it would help him.”
My heart pounded. “Help him with what, Grandma? The doctors say he’s fine. It’s clearly making him sick!”
Violet Affleck advocates for COVID-19 protections in her UN address, from a post dated September 24. 2025 | Source: Youtube/@theindependent
She turned, her face etched with a pain I hadn’t seen before. Tears welled in her eyes, tracing paths through the wrinkles on her cheeks. “He has it, you see. The same affliction. The same weakness.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded, a cold dread washing over me. “He has nothing! He’s a healthy boy!”
She shook her head, her gaze distant, fixed on something in the past. “No, you don’t understand. My first son… your uncle… he had it too. The stomach pain. The fevers. He was so delicate. So fragile.”
A jolt went through me. My mother’s side of the family never talked about the uncle who died young. It was a taboo subject, a tragedy buried under decades of silence.
“Grandma, what does that have to do with my son?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
She gripped my arm, her frail fingers surprisingly strong. “He was meant to be strong. To live. But the pain… it took him from me. I tried everything. Every remedy. But I was too late.” Her voice broke. “But this time… this time I know better. This time, I’m starting early.”
My blood ran cold. “Grandma, what are you saying?”
She looked at me, her eyes clouded with an unspeakable grief, a desperate, fierce love. “The herb… it makes them strong. It cleanses the weakness. It makes the body fight. It made him sick, yes, but it’s a necessary sickness. It’s what I should have given your uncle. It would have saved him. And now… now it will save your son.”
I stared at her, utterly horrified. The herb. The pain. Her first son’s death. She wasn’t trying to hurt my child. She was trying to save him, believing he carried the same fatal weakness as her lost child. She was repeating a tragic, delusional ritual, forcing my son to endure the very symptoms of the illness she believed she was preventing, fueled by a lifetime of guilt and unprocessed grief.
Violet Affleck spotted out in New York City on August 14, 2022. | Source: Getty Images
MY GRANDMA WAS POISONING MY SON, CONVINCED SHE WAS CURING HIM OF A GHOSTLY ILLNESS THAT HAD TAKEN HER OWN CHILD, AND SHE HADN’T SEEN THE TRUTH IN FIFTY YEARS.
My knees felt weak. The smell of roses suddenly nauseated me. I saw not a loving grandmother, but a woman trapped in a perpetual nightmare, replaying her deepest trauma on my innocent child.
And I had just discovered that the reason for my son’s agony was her desperate, heartbreaking delusion. My throat tightened. HOW COULD I EVER EXPLAIN THIS TO ANYONE? HOW COULD I PROTECT HIM WITHOUT BREAKING HER? It wasn’t malice. It was a love so twisted by pain, it became a poison. And I suddenly understood that the real sickness wasn’t in my son’s stomach, but in her heart. And it was incurable.
