Last night as I listened to my sisters voice note about the visit to my mother in the home where she’s been for I have no idea just how long. She is 81 in December, who would have thought she’d live this long I thought. But as they rightly say, only the good die young.

My mother is twisted, has always been. Depressed, bitter and twisted. As a child I used to hang onto her every word. Her every weird idea. I used to get laughed at, at school for passionately repeating her ideas. About UFO’s, Politics, History, But religion now that was different somehow, when she said God is not a God of love, in my mind I obstinately said ‘He is’.

I think my sister created my survival of the horrors of my childhood and my strength of today. She was three years older than me and used to be verbal. The more verbal she got, the more abused she was.

So I went the other way, I got strong in my head. When she got abusive, I didn’t say a word, but silently in my head I used to say to myself, you can’t kill me. You won’t make me die. And that made me very internally strong. It also made me not have any memories prior to the age of 9 or 10 when my mother brought home my sister from the hospital. That’s when my memories start. I have one from when I was in Grade 2 that filtered through and it was because I thought she loved me when I saw blood swirling down the sink as she tended a wound in my head inflicted by her uncontrollable rage.

The last time I saw my mother was in 2004 and Nic has never met her. It was then that she disowned me. Changed her phone number and ‘walked away from her family’. No she walked away from me. Not my sister and not my brother who can do no wrong. All because I wanted to build my life with Nic and not her. She had a place, but she was the mother not the husband but she wanted to be the reason I breathed every day and I could not be that for her. Not anymore.

She talks to everyone about my brothers successes and about how she wrote off her family. So what is he exactly then? In her mind where did she place him. And where has she placed my sister.

My sister found my brother through years of searching who linked up with my mother. I had no such inclination. A mother who abandons her children in this way is not a mother and not worthy of a search. And besides I knew her. I knew her anger. And I knew her bitterness. And I knew she had not changed. And I was right.

My mother upon not seeing her daughter for almost two decades, (she was estranged from my sister longer than I was) did not even try and touch her. Hug her. Shake her hand. Acknowledge her presence. That was my mother alright.

My sister tells me how she did not mention my name. But I said you’re wrong. She mentions the year she wrote off her family, the same year we last had contact. That is about me. And the impact our departing had. She finally lost her control over me. And she knew that, so she punished me with her complete removal. Only it was not a complete punishment, because I didn’t have to be held back anymore. I just had to deal with the void she left. Nic helped me through the black void of a mother’s disappearance and complete rejection.

So, I am finally free. I know where she is. I know she made the choice never to mention my name and to never allow anyone to mention my name either. She made the choice not to forgive whatever her grudge was. She made the choice to allow her bitterness and resentment to rule her life and overtake the need to see or interact with her daughter. She made the decision not to forgive even in her final days. And that is on her.