When most people have a loved one who is dying of an age-related infirmity, or something that they know is going to happen where they’ve had time to prepare for that person’s death, they get to make memories with them and things tend to be pretty peaceful. Although arrangements have to be made for the person’s death, they get to spend time with them and things are… a lot happier than how they played out with my mother. I had to make peace with the fact that I was “shafted” of my mother giving me a good death. I didn’t get to prepare for her death even though we knew that it was coming, even though she didn’t actually get on Hospice until days before her death, because she had turned into such a vile person with what she had inflicted onto one of my children that I actually wanted her to die and looked forward to the time in my life when she would actually no longer be in it. I didn’t get to make memories with her as she was getting ready to die because I wanted her to be gone. And although I’m at peace with the decisions that I made leading up to her death and am at peace with the fact that she is no longer here and that I will never have to interact with her again, I used to read stories on social media of friends of mine getting this good experience with their loved ones and was jealous that I got the shortest possible end of the stick with my very own mother.

What brought me closure was the fact that I chose my own child over her because she made me, that I would — will — literally never see her again, and that I will never forgive her for what she did because not doing so brings me immeasurable peace. But for awhile, I was jealous reading these stories of friends having loved ones who they got to make memories with before they passed and that, even though it culminated in the passing of their loved one, things were as happy as they could still make them. My mother took that away from me, knew that she was taking that away from me, and turned into a monster before she died.

But giving me even a modicum of that would have involved her actually apologizing for what she did, so…