I visited my mother yesterday. It was her 78th birthday. We’re not communicating much, so I pushed her to get back into therapy so Robbie and I could particiate and work on the unresolved issues. She agreed — again.
She showed me the will that she said Dad had drawn up in 1993. He explicitly wrote both me and my sister out of the will. Only my brother was to get anything if both of them died. She said he bullied her into signing it, and that she never had the heart to tell me about it. She then handed me a letter that she wrote to me a few months ago, intending for me to read it after she was dead. She suddenly thought it best for me to read it now. I put it in my bag without reading it. I cut her off when she continued to find bad things to say about Dad, pointing out that the triangulation between her and him and me was still alive and well.
I told her it doesn’t matter to me anymore that he rejected me. I made my peace with him in my own heart long ago. I then showed her my Real Joe web site and she expressed interest in reading my Eulogy to him. She was stunned. She’d forgotten all the goods things about him as father. And she wept and thanked me.
I have yet to read the letter. I’m not dreading it. I just need some time to reflect after I read it and the next few days are going to be wonderfully hectic.