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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/ManicPixieDreamPearl on 2024-04-10 01:17:14.

TIFU by not knowing what my grandma looked like.

A few weeks ago, I fell down an ancestry.com rabbit hole. It led me to a picture of my (long-gone) paternal grandmother, probably from when she was in her 30’s or 40’s. I was thrilled. My dad doesn’t have any good pictures of her, and I only vaguely remember her as a weak old lady with a frizzy halo of hair. My dad always told me that she looked a bit like Lucille Ball in her prime. I looked at the picture of this redhead with a sassy smile and decided he was right. She looked a lot like my aunt, and even a little bit like me. I saved the picture in my phone and tried to think of when to surprise my dad with it. Maybe I’d have it framed as a Father’s Day gift.

We found out a few weeks ago that he needed to have surgery. He and my stepmom kept us all updated in the family group chat throughout the day as he checked into the hospital, then had the surgery, then was finally discharged. Everything went well. I decided this was as good a time as any to show him the pic. I sent it to the group chat with the caption, “Check out this pic of grandma! She was looking out for you ;)”

And then my dad responded with three words that absolutely floored me:

“Not my mother”

I looked at the picture again. But she LOOKED like she could be my grandmother! “That’s not grandma?” I responded as the chat became flooded with laughing emojis from the rest of my relatives.

“Never seen that woman before.”

So I don’t know who that woman actually IS. I guess it could be a same-name (my grandma had a fairly common old-lady first name and a moderately common last name. Think something along the lines of Alice Rodgers), but I’m both disappointed that it wasn’t her and relieved that I didn’t pay to get it framed. My husband gently pointed out that a lot of people who settled in our part of the USA from Germany/NW Europe kind of look alike. I guess I wanted it to be my grandma so badly that I convinced myself she looked like family. I sure did make an ass out of myself in the family group chat, though.

TL:DR: Surprised my dad after his surgery with a picture of his late mother. The lady in the picture was not his mother.