I am forwarding sats to @Satosora who advised me yesterday:

and to @Undisciplined who was also giving me sound advice.

I am putting myself in a very vulnerable position here as I have never shared this before, however if I am going to be myself on this platform then I think it is important to give at least a little context. On the other-hand, very few may read it 😂

I rang the doorbell, and she ushered me round to the back garden. Sitting on the cast iron garden chair with my freshly made cup of coffee, I took a minute to appreciate the day. It really was beautiful. The sun was shining; the skies were blue and there were little birds flying in and out of the trees, perching on the fences and singing to each other. I smiled as I imagined how free they felt, being able to fly away without a moment’s thought. How I wished I could do that right now!

“So, how are you?” Mum asked, smiling at me as I took another sip of my coffee.

“Not too bad, thanks, you?” I said quietly, without making eye contact.

“I’m great,” she beamed, “I’m here at Pat’s house doing the gardening and then she is going to make my tea when she gets back from wherever it is she has gone off to today. It’s a nice surprise to see you. You really should come down and see my new house, you know. No one ever comes to see me there. I get a feeling that something is bothering you, though. What’s up?”

I looked up at her with my coffee cup pulled close to my face and in that moment; she knew what I wanted to talk about. She sighed and calmly said, “How many more times do we have to rake up these old wounds? The past is in the past and all I want to do is forget about it and move forward. Why can’t you just let me do that?”

“It’s not that simple, mum.”

“Yes, yes, it is!” she scowled.

“Maybe for you, but then it serves you to forget, doesn’t it?”

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said!”

“There’s nothing else to discuss. We have talked about everything and I can’t talk about it anymore. You know, I was as much a victim as you and have suffered terribly over the years for it. You punish me by not coming to see me. Your brother won’t even acknowledge I’m alive and your sister, well, she just drains the life out of me. I just wanted a normal family with happy children. I don’t see what’s so wrong with wanting that.”

“How could you possibly think that any of us were going to come out of all that happened unscathed?”

I still struggled to say exactly what I was thinking. A part of me still just wanted her to be happy, and I felt desperately sorry for her because I still loved her. I also wanted to come and see her in her new place, let her show me round and be proud of the space she had created for herself. But it was too hard, too painful, and I would find an excuse to stay away as often as I could.

My mum was going to die alone, with no family that truly cared for her, and I felt guilty about that. After all, daughters are supposed to be there for their mums. They taught me that from a young age, and I firmly believed that. However, mums are also supposed to be there for their daughters. They are supposed to look after them, protect them from harm, love them, feed them and make them feel safe. She had done none of that. She was not a mum in any sense of the word.

How could she possibly think that we could be a normal happy family with all the stuff that she had done?

What sane person would ever think like that?

“I thought when I asked him to leave and he did, that everything would just go back to the way it had been before and that we would all just put it behind us.”

That was the most honest thing she had ever said to me.

“But we can’t, can we, mum? When there is a wound that doesn’t heal, a scar forms and it sticks around as a reminder of what happened. The more scars there are, the harder it is to ignore them. You look closely at them in the mirror, you examine them, you wonder what you could have done to prevent them from happening, they transport you back to the time they occurred.”

“You don’t have any scars, though, do you?” She smirked.

No scars! No bloody scars! How dare she!

“I have more scars than you will ever realise, mum, and the majority came from the things you did. What he did was awful, but what you did was worse because you allowed it to happen and you allowed him to get away with it.”

“And what, dear, is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

She shuffled around in her chair, clearly flustered, and said, “I don’t have a clue what you mean.”

“Well, let me remind you.”

I explained to her the conversation I had had the day before. Of all the things she had done, this tipped me over the edge because she had decided that her own happiness and reputation were worth more than her daughter’s life.

“That woman! She always had it in for me.”

“Is it any wonder?” I asked.

“Who do you think you are talking to?” She shouted. “I am still your mother, you know, and you need to have some respect. Now I have let you get away with quite enough of this today.”

I sighed and then stood up to leave. I could see that there was no point in carrying on the conversation. As I was picking my car keys off the table, I think she knew that if she let me go in that very moment that she wouldn’t see me again.

“No love, come on, I’m sorry, let’s talk. What do you need from me? What can I do to help?”

“Honestly?” I asked.

“Yes, I will do whatever I can.”

“OK then,” I said as I sat down in my chair. “I need you to hear me. Not the adult version of me that understands how the world works and understands that parents can make mistakes, but the nine-year-old me and the teenage me. I need you to listen to what she has to say, without interruption, without getting defensive and without laying the blame in any other direction. Can you do that?”

“Yes, of course I can. I want to help so that we can move past this.”

“OK, but I really need you to promise you won’t get defensive, because this isn’t about now, this is about then.”

“I am ready to listen,” she said calmly.

I must admit, I was nervous, and I didn’t really know what I was going to say, but she had given me the opportunity, so I had to take it.

I began.

“I’m hurt and sad and angry and scared. You all called me a liar but I know that I’m not, but the people who are supposed to look after me are making everything worse and I have nowhere that I can go that will keep me safe. Nobody loves me and I just want someone to love me. I want someone to stand up for me, to tell everyone that they believe in me. I want YOU to stand up and tell the truth and to stop making out as though nothing was your fault. I want you to tell me you are sorry for the things that you did and how you hurt me. I want you to love me. I am more angry with you than I am with him, because what you did to me was far worse because you were my mum and you were supposed to be the one to protect me.”

I cried. Then I looked up and saw my mum’s face. It was a sight that I hadn’t seen in a few years. She had morphed back into her ugly twin. Her eyes were black and looking right through me, and I could see that she was about to say something that was really going to hurt.

I swear that the weather had turned too. Rather than the sun beaming down on us, there now seemed to be a cold chill in the air. The birds had stopped chirping, and I had goosebumps from feeling cold.

“How many times do I have to tell you I was a victim too?” she started.

I felt like I was nine years old again. I went from being the confident adult that I now am to shrinking into myself and I waited for the verbal beating.

“Everything I did was to protect you, and I can’t believe that you still want to keep raking this all up. The man that you should blame, you don’t seem to care about, but its OK to tell me how rubbish a mum I have been. You need to get a grip, stop living in the past, and move on.”

I sat there for a few minutes and just sobbed. She carried on giving me a lecture, but I had switched her voice off in my head. I sat there in my own thoughts.

Why did she always have to lay the blame elsewhere? I didn’t want her to be in trouble, I just wanted her to look at me, say the word ‘Sorry’ and mean it. It wasn’t about blame. I just wanted her to take responsibility for her part in it all.

After a while, I stood up, wiped the tears from my eyes, picked up my keys and said quietly, “You’re right, I should move on.”

I walked away, and I didn’t look back. I could hear Pat, who had returned at some point, shout to my mum, “Well...go after her!”.

She followed me and shouted my name, but nothing was going to make me turn round this time. She had made her choice. I had always been willing to forgive her for all that had happened, but she was not willing to do what I needed her to do in order for me to heal, and that was OK. I realised that now. She is who she is, I couldn’t change her, and I needed to move on.

I got into the car and drove away, looking at her through my mirror and saying quietly to myself “goodbye mum”. Knowing that now, I could truly live my life.

I was finally free.