Met my mother at Christmas Mass
Background: years of ugliness we all know from our alcoholic backgrounds, including my mother telling people--even my high school friends--negative and untrue things about me. One day I just quit calling. She never called me, either.
Toss in the rest of the ugliness of an alcoholic family, including physical violence, scapegoating, rages at holiday dinners, and more and I quit attending family gatherings. I have not brought my kids because I know the kinds of things said about me behind my back.
After church, my mother saw my son, started to talk to him, and I came out, and headed out toward the car with him. She had a few words for me.
I was pleasant. I asked her--hoping she'd see the point--when she had last called me, hoping she'd stop and think that maybe at the very least, I may not be entirely responsible for this situation, that maybe things feel a little different from where I'm standing.
It was clear from her response that, as always, the family narrative is that things are always, entirely, my fault. Always. That they're perfect and I just flipped out for no reason and started withholding my children from them. Sigh.
She was bitter and angry. So much for a Christmas miracle.