On the east side of San Jose, California, there is an abuela who seems to have more grandchildren than she can count.

Mardonia Galeana holds her grandson Yosimar Reyes hands, in San Jose, Calif., on March 18, 2024. Reyes has cared for his grandmother since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Carolyn Fong/The New York Times)

“A lot of people see me and they hug me,” Mardonia Galeana, 89, said in Spanish. “I don’t even know them, but sometimes they ask me for a blessing on the street and I do the best I can on their forehead.”

Her likeness has been featured in a painting in the San José Museum of Art and in a mural in the city’s mission district. But it’s her online presence that has captivated the thousands of people who have come across the photos and videos posted by her grandson Yosimar Reyes.

“Seeing your Abuela smiling and having a good time truly warms my heart,” one user commented beneath a video of Galeana enjoying herself at a senior center while others danced to a track by merengue singer Elvis Crespo.

Reyes has been chronicling moments in his grandmother’s life on a private Instagram account followed by more than 21,000 people. His posts have shown a trip they took to New Orleans, their strolls with his dog, Chulito, around the San Jose Flea Market, and occasional doctor visits.

Although Reyes calls himself Galeana’s “personal stylist,” he is first and foremost her caregiver — driving her to appointments, managing her medications, making sure she has a roof over her head.

“I take pride in the fact that I care for and dress my grandma,” Reyes, 35, said. “That she’s not going to be out here in a muumuu. Her nails are also poppin’ and it’s a big self-esteem boost for her.”

Francesca Falzarano, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, has a term for the growing number of people like Reyes who share behind-the-scenes looks at the daily realities of providing round-the-clock care for older loved ones.

“In my research lab, we call them ‘carefluencers,’” Falzarano said. “Social media is really the only way a lot of these people are able to access support, education and a sense of belonging.”

Reyes, a poet and artist, was raised by his grandparents and came with them to the United States from Guerrero, Mexico, in the early 1990s. “Even as a kid, I was already a caregiver,” he said. “I had to translate documents and help my grandparents navigate this country because they were older and didn’t speak English.”

Reyes, who was named the 2024 Santa Clara County poet laureate, said he has occasionally found himself overwhelmed since he fully undertook the role of caring for his grandmother during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m trying to build a career as an artist and as a writer, but then I still have to go home and have to take care of somebody,” said Reyes, who has described his experience as a caregiver in poems like “Abuela Gets a Fever.” “Some days, I’m emotionally depleted. And if she’s having a bad day, I have to make sure that I’m not reactionary.”

Mardonia Galeana poses with her grandson, Yosimar Reyes, outside their home in San Jose, Calif., on March 18, 2024. On TikTok and Instagram, people are sharing what it’s like to take care of relatives who have reached their final years. (Carolyn Fong/The New York Times)

As the population ages, Reyes’ experience is likely to become more common. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of unpaid caregivers in the United States increased to about 53 million in 2020 from 43.5 million in 2015.

Chris Punsalan of Las Vegas, who became a caregiver for his grandmother Anicia Manipon eight years ago, has shared his experiences with her on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

“I decided to document us because I felt it was important,” Punsalan, 30, said. “It’s not only for me to be able to look back on, but I also slowly realized that it was very helpful for people who have been through a somewhat similar situation.”

Punsalan, who has over 2 million followers on TikTok, has created content out of tending to his grandmother’s bedsores, cooking her breakfast and sharing the products he uses to tend to her needs. Since Manipon’s death in January, he realized that his social media accounts have done more than provide information and comfort for other family caregivers.

“During her funeral, my cousin said something that really struck a chord with me,” Punsalan recalled. “He said, ‘Whenever I miss my grandmother, I have a library of videos to remember her by.’”

Jacquelyn Revere, an aspiring TV writer in Los Angeles, began posting about her experiences after she became the main caregiver for her mother and grandmother in 2016. She said she found comfort while trying to help others in her position through social media, and the number of people following her on TikTok grew to more than 650,000.

“When I was posting my mom, it’s not like I felt like I had to — it actually became fun,” said Revere, 37. “Social media brought so much validation with people saying, ‘You’re doing such a good job,’ and it became a place of refuge.”

Revere’s grandmother died in 2017; her mother died in 2022.

“Many of my caregiver friends are people who I’ve met on social media,” Revere said. “We’ve really created a community that’s very close knit, because it’s hard to understand the weight of this role if you’ve never had it.”

Mardonia Galeana poses for grandson Yosimar Reyes outside their home in San Jose, Calif., on March 18, 2024. On TikTok and Instagram, people are sharing what it’s like to take care of relatives who have reached their final years. (Carolyn Fong/The New York Times)

While posting a get-ready-with-me-and-Grandma video on TikTok may bring caregivers a sense of community, some viewers can’t shake the feeling that such content might be exploitative. Is a vulnerable older relative in a position to consent to appear in a video, when the person recording it is responsible for administering her medication?

“That is so heartbreaking,” one user commented on a TikTok video of an older woman struggling to eat. “I wish you all would have the dignity to stop posting these messages.”

But according to Falzarano, the benefits of caregivers’ sharing their experiences outweigh the risks. “It’s really contributing to the greater awareness and visibility of chronic illness in caregiving,” she said.

Falzarano, 32, whose research is focused on dementia, family caregiving and technology for older adults, also noted that while there are a variety of resources readily available for expecting parents, the same could not be necessarily said for those grappling with the end of life.

“We all have this universal experience where we’ll need to provide care or need to be cared for at some point,” Falzarano said. “Why not start thinking about it now?”

Galeana, who will turn 90 in December, hasn’t been able to return to the home in Mexico that she and her grandson left behind more than three decades ago. With no clear pathway to U.S. citizenship, the two have built a forever home of sorts online.

“She’s old and she’s been through so much, from poverty in Mexico to all that we’ve experienced in the United States,” Reyes said. “My goal now is to make sure that she’s happy and not always talking about how sad her life was. And people love her here and know her as the abuelita. It’s beautiful.”

Whether it’s being recognized at the market or having flowers or care packages sent to her home by strangers who have encountered her online, she has become a local celebrity.

“As a little girl, I wanted to be an artist,” Galeana said in Spanish. “I would dance and sing and want to be on the movie theater screen. But it never happened.”

But later that week, after Reyes had fixed her hair and done her makeup, she was ready to be the star of a video that would be seen by thousands.

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Here are two crime/mysteries and a light-hearted novel about art and wealth for your TBR list.

(Courtesy of the author)

“Ashes, Ashes”: by Fredrick Soukup (Vine Leaves Press, $17.99)

I was a boy who left Miss Bonnie’s place to revisit the house of my childhood torture. And before that I was a boy who didn’t know I needed to revisit the house of my childhood torture, because I didn’t know quite that it was torture. And before that I was a boy who didn’t know how much I’d someday love and hate Miss Bonnie, because I didn’t know her from any pack-a-day in the county. And before that I was a boy up in that cold grey garage loft, one of many probably, being tortured and not knowing it. These things happen. — from “Ashes, Ashes”

Fredrick Soukup (Courtesy of the author)

Foster mother Miss Bonnie’s body is found in her home and the story is that she hanged herself. Dorian, one of her “boys,” is grown up and scratching out a living in northern Minnesota. He hasn’t been back to Miss Bonnie’s home in the town of Sibley, near Brainerd, since he left years earlier. But he wants to pay his respects to the woman who loved him and her other foster kids. Returning to the now-dilapidated house he finds Heath, one of his foster “brothers,” living there alone. Darian looks at the tin ceiling and knows there was no way Miss Bonnie would have been able to kill herself with a rope. The cops in this town where everybody knows everybody are hiding something.

But who killed Miss Bonnie and why? That’s the heart of this richly layered and complicated psychological novel, which holds mysteries within mysteries and lies in lies. It’s the story of trauma experienced by kids in the foster system, even those with caring substitute mothers, as well as the pains of social class.

The story moves back and forth in time, covering about 20 years in the lives of a big cast of characters, especially in the voices of Dorian and Heath, Emma and Monica. Emma has known Dorian for years and although she is married with children, she emails him almost day, discussing her life to the extent her messages become a sort-of journal. Dorian never responds but he reads every word and she knows it. Monica is the girl young Heath wants to run away with. When she is expecting his baby, she breaks the fragile and angry boy’s heart.

This is a novel that needs to be read slowly and carefully because it’s easy to lose track of the characters’ relationships. And although there is violence and abuse in the story, the conclusion is so perfect it could break your heart.

Soukup, who lives in St. Paul, is a graduate of St. John’s University. His debut novel, “Bliss,” was a finalist for a 2021 Minnesota Book Award and received an independent publishers bronze medal in the Great Lakes Fiction category. His second novel, “Blood Up North,” won the NYC Big Book Award for Literary Fiction.

“Ashes, Ashes” was inspired by the years when the author’s parents took care of more than 60 foster children at their home in northern Minnesota. Soukup will introduce his novel at 6 pm. Friday, April 19, at Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.

(Courtesy of the author)

“Doorman Wanted”: by Glenn R. Miller (Koehler Books, $28.95 hardcover, $19.19 paperback)

I do mean it in a positive way. You’re not like the other doormen I’ve encountered. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s the way you carry yourself. It’s different, certainly, from the current collection at L’Hermitage.” — from “Doorman Wanted”

Glenn R. Miller (Courtesy of the author)

What could be more fun than a peek into the lives of wealthy folks who live in an Upper East Side apartment building?  We meet the residents through the eyes of Franklin Hanratty, the polite, helpful doorman who talks like a P.J. Wodehouse character. But Franklin isn’t who he’s pretending to be. He’s Henry Franken, heir to a fortune, whose secret is that he owns the building where he works.

Henry knows everything that goes on in the building, including the room number of sweet Wendy. All the tenants love him but his boss, Charlotte, does not. Even when Henry sorts out a crazy traffic jam in front of the building involving two stuck delivery trucks, ditzy, self-promoting Charlotte takes credit for his work.

Nobody knows that when Henry goes home for the evening he walks down an alley and re-enters the building through a back door into a private elevator that takes him to his home — the luxurious owner’s penthouse. Meanwhile, Charlotte and the residents are becoming increasingly agitated because this mysterious owner never seems to be around.

When Henry goes against the rules and gives free morning coffee to homeless street artists Terry and Tomata he finds himself in the world of talented men and women who just haven’t made it as artists. Terry and Tomata are beguiling characters, almost a comedy act as they philosophize about art and their place in society. Every Saturday Henry meets with his lawyer/godmother, who’d been his father’s best friend. She urges him to stop pretending, reveal his status as building owner, and get on with his life. But Henry has always been ambivalent about having so much money and he doesn’t know what to do with it. So he remains a doorman.

In a hilarious chapter Harry and his artist friends are recruited by Wendy to give advice on packaging of a high-priced protein bar. The artists show their skills and explain why the proposed packaging is the wrong color and the picture on it is not accurate. Unfortunately, Wendy’s boss is appalled by these rag-tag artists and fires Wendy.

Eventually Henry’s involvement with the artists, whose living space is in Central Park, helps him discover what he can do with his wealth with the help of Wendy.

The author, who lives in Minneapolis, began his career by working on television soap operas and game shows at NBC in Burbank, Calif. He has served as a CBS-affiliate news producer as well as executive speechwriter and creative director at production agencies in the Twin Cities. A teacher at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, he is married to former Loft director Jocelyn Hale. Miller has also served on the boards of independent publishers Graywolf Press and Coffee House  House Press and is former president of Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library.

(Courtesy of the author)

“Murder in the Tea Leaves”: by Laura Childs (Berkley Prime Crime, $28.99)

Theodosia shouted at the top of her lungs, pounded on the door, and finally resorted to kicking it with all her might. The door didn’t shatter, budge, or break. She was locked in the attic with nothing but the remains of a mystery — the bizarre tale of a woman’s strange imprisonment. — from “Murder in the Tea Leaves”

Minnesotan Gerry Schmitt, who writes as Laura Childs (Courtesy of the author)

Theodosia Browning, owner of the Indigo Tea Shop in Charleston, S.C., takes on Hollywood in Laura Childs’ 27th tea shop cozy. Theo is providing snacks for the crew of a horror film being produced in an abandoned old mansion when the lights go out and the director’s body is lifted off his metal chair, sparks flying all around him. So begins Theo’s investigation into who would kill the director by wiring electricity to a chair. There is no shortage of suspects, as usual. Among them are the new director who seemed to step into the role a little too smoothly, the head script writer, the film’s female star and the head electrician. When one of Theo’s friends is shot in her antique shop, Theo risks her life and that of Drayton, her tea sommelier, during a late-night confrontation with the bad guys in the city’s harbor.

As with all tea shop mysteries by Childs (pen name for Minnesotan Gerry Schmitt), Theo’s charming shop is a main character as she, Drayton and chef Haley orchestrate meals and themed events such as Vintage and Poetry teas. What goes on at the tea shop is as interesting as the mystery, showing Theo’s smarts as a small-business owner. Childs does a terrific job of evoking the sounds and smells of old Charleston, its stately mansions and its long history. And we can count on her being protected by Earl Grey, her big dog. Now if only Theo could spend some quality time with her boyfriend Riley, a detective who keeps telling her to stop investigating or she’ll get hurt. But an intrepid and brave sleuth never listens to that kind of advice. (The book includes 12 of Haley’s recipes, from Ham and Sweet Potato Casserole to Double-Chocolate Scones and Waldorf Tea Sandwiches.)

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