Another realization

[Seven]

Hey all
I usually post on the elderly board since uNPDm is 90, but this post is something that is not necessarily age related.

I got to thinking...Bro5 is the main GC (all 3 boys can do no wrong though). 3 decades ago he had a brain tumor, survived without issue, and she has enabled him ever since. Bailed him out of every little thing.  Basically, Money thrown down the drain.  While in the hospital the last 3 weeks (with still no diagnosis mind you except for bacterial pneumonia, but still unknown what the bacteria actually is) it was found his tumor came back.  She immediately paid off his car since it was about to get repo-ed while in the hospital. 

7 years ago, a nephew (her grandson) had cancer (he has since passed at age 30 unfortunately).  Another time that uNPDm threw money to the family.  A good sum too.  This was meant to help with travel for clinical trials, which he was never able to do because he went downhill so fast.  I think it went towards funeral expenses eventually.

I got to thinking the last couple of days...I wonder if I got deathly ill would I turn into the GC?  Nah.  I'm a girl.  Sis1 had cancer 15 years ago....uNPDm didn't send her $.  Same Sis1 got the flu a couple xmases ago, ended up in the hospital dehydrated, and then with afib because her electrolytes were whack because of dehydration....instead of uNPDm feeling any empathy for her, she just told Sis1 everything she did wrong to get herself sick.  To the woman who beat cancer, reversed her T2D, cared for uNPDm sister (our aunt1) after Aunt2 passed.  And uNPDm always calls us by each other's name. She calls Sis1 "Seven" and calls me "Sis1". So to her we are the same person.

Then it dawned on me...the only time I remember her paying any attention to me is when I was sick.  Chicken pox, virus, whatever.  It was the only time she was ever nice.  Then I got to thinking now (as an adult), "is this why I feigned sick from school?  Just to get my mother to pay attention to me?"  Because if I wasn't sick, I was just in the way.  As a child she would never play with me.  She'd delegate that to my other siblings or my dad.  Never came to any of my sporting events.  I went to anyone who would pay attention to me, because she wouldn't if I wasn't sick. 

Just makes me want to cry.  I'm not sick AND I'm the wrong gender.

PS Now she complains that we don't have a relationship like her other "friends" and their daughters. Well, evidently she didn't have that type of mother/daughter relationship with any of my sisters either, so I'm not sure why I'd be any different. We were the children...not our job to shape the relationship.

[Amadahy]

The ONLY time in my life when I feel like my mother cared for me and really "got" me was when I had a life-threatening illness at age 10.  Now, everything is all MC and LC, which seems to suit her fine.  (I hate small talk, trite stuff, but that's where we are.  It's hard!) I don't know how many years I could have really used a caring, maternal presence and felt such a depth of deprivation that I would cry for hours. I'm sorry that you or anyone else feels this way. 

I think you are a marvelous gender (LOL) and I'm glad you're not sick!