her ladies living here right now so you’ll have plenty of privacy. Breakfast is at 8, lunch at noon, dinner at 6. And there’s always coffee and tea in the kitchen.” Martha smiled. “You’re going to be just fine here, dear.”
After she left, I sat on the bed and cried. Really cried. Forty-seven years I’d raised my children. Sacrificed everything for them. And they’d thrown me away like garbage.
Frank, Tommy, and Marcus visited me every week for the next six months. Brought me groceries. Took me to doctor’s appointments. Helped me apply for additional assistance. Treated me like I mattered.
They also did something else. They found my daughter.
I didn’t know about it until it was over. But Frank told me later that they’d shown up at her house. All three of them plus fifteen other club members. Knocked on her door and had a conversation.
“We didn’t threaten her,” Frank assured me. “We just explained that abandoning your elderly mother on a street corner is elder abuse. That it’s illegal. That we’d documented everything and given the information to Adult Protective Services.”
“We also told her that she should be ashamed,” Tommy added. “That her mother raised her and deserved better. That if she couldn’t take care of you, fine, but dropping you off with garbage bags was unforgivable.”
My daughter called me the next day. Crying. Apologizing. Saying she didn’t know what she was thinking. That she was stressed and overwhelmed and made a terrible mistake.
“Mom, please come home. Please. I’m so sorry.” I told her no.
“You had fourteen months to treat me with dignity and you didn’t. You made me feel like a burden every single day. You threw me away when I became too expensive. I don’t want to come home.”
“I have a home now. With people who actually care about me. With people who showed me more kindness in one day than you showed me in fourteen months.” I paused. “Goodbye, Sarah. I hope you never know what it feels like to be abandoned by your own children.”
I hung up. And I didn’t cry. Because I wasn’t sad. I was free.Continue reading…
