this is so touching i could cry

And things may well have continued on that way were it not for the Internet. One evening, during a trip to Barcelona with Cam, my partner of three years, I answered a call from my mother over Skype to hear the dreaded words: “Your grandmother knows.” I guessed the source without much help: She had figured out how to read my writing, which occasionally referenced my sexuality, online.

“Well,” I said, anxiety welling up, “How did she take it?”

My mother sighed. “Bryan, we should’ve given the old bird more credit. I think it’s going to be fine.”

That was about four months ago. A few weeks ago, I went home for a wedding, and Cam came along. Grandma insisted on meeting him at her house. She fed us Carolina barbeque and potato salad and sweet tea, and I think she was more nervous about making a good impression on Cam than we were about gaining her approval. At the end of the visit, she hugged us both, and just before leaving, teary-eyed, she pulled me aside to tell me what had been stifling for her all these years: She and my grandfather didn’t care about my being gay—what had worried them most was thinking that I was all alone