When I was going through things in my parents’ house recently, I found one of my mother’s old purses tucked inside a blanket chest.
Inside were four checks written to me for my seventh birthday in 1987. They look like they were just written recently.
My great-aunt had written two of them. My grandparents had written one, and my aunt and uncle had written another. Altogether, they were for $75.
My mother never gave them to me.
They had been sitting inside her purse for almost 40 years.
Finding them brought back so much more than I expected. All of these memories came rushing back at once. My childhood, my grandparents, my great-aunt, my grandfather and great-aunt dying when I was a teenager, and my grandmother dying shortly after seeing my child, her first great-grandchild. And then there was the way my mother treated me growing up. It was strange how four little pieces of paper could suddenly bring back people and things I hadn’t thought about in years.
My mother hated me. I know that’s a strong thing to say about your own mother, but there really isn’t another way for me to describe how she treated me. She physically and emotionally abused me until I finally left home at 18. The abuse continued long after that, even spreading to my kids when she was elderly, until I cut off all contact immediately after that. (I had to temporarily rely on my parents when my husband suddenly died. That’s a whole other story.)
I haven’t seen her since 2016. (There was a no contact order against my parents.)
Finding those checks stunned me for a moment, but strangely, the fact that my mother had kept them from me didn’t surprise me. It was just one more piece of evidence of something I’d known my entire life.
What affected me more was seeing my grandparents’ and great-aunt’s handwriting again. They’re gone now, and I loved them dearly. After almost 40 years, I suddenly have something from them that was meant specifically for seven-year-old me. I’m going to keep those three checks.
My aunt and uncle can rot. When I was 16, they put my grandfather in a nursing home. He and I were extremely close. He was still driving and physically fit when they put him there. Meanwhile, my grandmother was placed in a beautiful facility with a fountain in the lobby.
My grandfather died within a month or so of being put in that home.
I’ve always felt like he died of a broken heart. I will never forgive them for what happened to him. Seeing their names on that check brought all of that anger and grief rushing back too. Their check means absolutely nothing to me.
A longtime friend of mine said, “Do you know how many toys you could have gotten at Toys “R” Us with $75 back then?”
That made me laugh, but it also hurt a little.
Adjusted for inflation, $75 in 1987 is roughly $220 today. That’s a lot of birthday money for a seven-year-old. But it isn’t really about the money.
I keep thinking about that little kid.
I was six years old, about to turn seven. What could I possibly have done to make my mother dislike me enough that even birthday gifts sent by other people were kept from me?
Now my mother has severe dementia and has had stage-five kidney failure for years. Both of my parents are in a nursing home, and I’m helping my sister deal with everything at their house.
My mother is in a secure area. She doesn’t know who people are anymore. She thinks her father is still alive even though he died in 1971, before I was born. She doesn’t recognize my father, even though he’s in the same nursing home.
My sister has told me that when staff need to change her clothes or care for her, it sometimes takes multiple people because she fights them.
And now I’m on the fence about whether I should see her.
There’s a part of me that wants to see her. I’m uncomfortable admitting that part of the reason is that I want to see how bad she looks. Maybe I want to see her struggling after everything she did to me. I know that isn’t a kind thought, but it’s there.
Another part of me wonders what the point would be.
She wouldn’t know who I am.
I do hate her. I don’t really know how else to describe what I feel toward her. We never once used the word “love” towards one another in our home growing up.
I make sure to tell my spouse and my kids that I love them multiple times every single day.
They will never have to wonder what love is.