I think this was actually the last time that Bub came up to my mother while she was alive.

I gave her several chances (more likely nearly actually pled with her, if not outright did so) to apologize to my son for her treatment of him, and she refused to do so each and every time. I know that it had to have been more than ten. But the one that burned me up the most was the last time that he happened to be near her, after I had fed her one of her meals. I asked her to apologize to him for her treatment of him while he was sitting right there, hoping that him being in close proximity to her might encourage — or even incentivize — her to do so. And I made sure never to word any of my requests in a manner that “placed blame” on her, not wanting to push her further away from doing this than simply making the request might, actually wanting her to apologize to him at some point while she was still alive, figuring that we were at the point that she might not have that much longer left if she needed help to get to the bathroom from the bed and back, in and out of the car, and someone to help her eat puréed foods because she could not swallow anything thicker than that (and she was starting to have difficulties with those, which meant feeding her took time).

But no. She blows all of that up by verbalizing the word “no”, right in front of him, as he is sitting there.

Even though Bub has severe communicative delays, I presume competence. I don’t assume that he can not or does not understand something unless that has been conveyed to me. So it was at this point that I decide to stop asking her to apologize to Bub for what she has done to, and said about, him, because she has made it abundantly clear that she is never going to — I feel as though it is a waste of time on my part to continue to ask, and if she ever suddenly changes her mind, she can make that clear to me on her own time. But at this point, I’m put in a position. I have to choose between my child and my mother. Something’s got to give.

I’m put in the screwed up position of having to choose between the person that gave birth to me and the person that I gave birth to, because one of them is forcing my hand and through her own deliberate actions continually making this the situation that it has become. And as much as it would not have been a decision that I would have wanted to make in the first place, I do not falter. To this day, I know that I would have made the same exact decision, and I would have done things the same exact way if given another chance.

I tell my mother that she is no longer my mother and that she will remain this way until she apologizes to my child. I am her caregiver, and I will remain her caregiver until she passes away. But I am no longer her child.

If her opinion of my child is so low that he is not worth apologizing to, I am not worth having as a child.

Based on the look on her face as I said this to her, she understood every word that I said and she didn’t care.