My mother called me last night. She wanted to talk about getting rid of her clothes and possessions in preparation for her dying. She kept saying that she didn’t want to upset me and that she wanted to know what of hers I wanted. In the past, I would have tried to not react to her manipulations. However, last night there was something different. I didn’t need try to not react. My responses were healthy.
I told her that I didn’t care what she did and that I didn’t want anything from her. All my life, she has been holding this carrot over my head that when she died, she was going to give my brother and me money, her house, and her possessions. It was going to be such a wonderful gift and windfall. It was an unspoken rule that we owed her for all that she had given us and all that she was going to give to us. She made sure that we could never pay her back. We could never do anything for her without her actually paying us. We could never buy her anything without her paying us back. She always wanted to have that upper hand where we owed her.
Except I was the one that has spent my entire life disappointing her and not behaving the way she wanted me to act. I don’t care anymore what she does. My life doesn’t depend on her. Whatever she chooses to do that’s her business. I am going to do whatever I can to support her, but I am not going to let her actions run my life. As for this “huge inheritance”, I have come to realize that it isn’t worth my sanity. When my mom dies, if I am offered anything, then I will take it. However, I am not going to love my mom in exchange for possessions or money. That’s not why I stuck around all these years. I stuck around all these years and put up with the pain and abuse because of God’s love and out of a sense of honor for my mother no matter how bad she hurt me. There’s nothing I want from her. She doesn’t have the upper hand anymore at least not with me.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
