Mother dying from cancer

[ambivalent1]

I was told abruptly 13 days ago that my mother has end stage stomach cancer and wouldn't make it through the night.  I wasn't able to get anyone to drive me until the next night but I drove a long distance to her nursing home.
She was not able to talk because she was heavily medicated.  I told her I would have seen her sooner if I knew she had cancer and I told her I loved her.  I said I loved her because I felt it was my job to tell her that.  That's what she raised me to say.
She has never been someone to call me or my sister under almost any circumstance.  My sister lives halfway across the country and stopped talking to my mother over 10 years ago for the most part because she repeatedly told my mother she thought she didn't care for her because she never called to see how she was.  She finally cut off contact after an in person visit.
The same thing has been happening with me for the last 5 years.  Since moving into the nursing home, she has called me twice.  In January I called her after no contact for 6 months.  I was homeless most of last year.  When I called, she didn't ask me how I was or whether I had a roof over my head.  When I said I had to go she asked me to promise to call her again that day.
I told her I couldn't because it was too painful.  She didn't ask why in the world it was so painful for a son to talk to his own mother.  She instead accepted a promise I would call in a week instead.  I didn't.  The next I heard she was dying.
I talked to my brother today.  He visits her regularly.  He has autism, taking care of which is much less important to her than making sure his life is absorbed with paying attention to her.
When I talked to him earlier today, he told me my mother can talk and he has been talking with her.  Apparently the lack of talking when I saw her was from heavy medication.
She has a phone next to her bed and is able to dial it.  It's been like that for years.  She never bothered to call and tell me she wasn't dead, that she appreciated my visiting her, or to say any final words now that her death is imminent.
I will not be calling or visiting her again.  It is not revenge.  I can't take anymore.  When I have visited her over the years, she talks about petty complaints about her nursing home, and she makes me tell her I love her, and I have to say it with enough enthusiasm and feeling.
It has always been like this.  It is not because she is old or in a nursing home.  She had children to have people who would love her unconditionally.  She told me as much when I was a teenager, without showing any self awareness or feeling for her children that there was anything wrong with that.
My feelings never mattered.  When I was in middle school.  Her and my father watched 2 different pet cats of mine die slowly on the floor over a period of days and did nothing.
I am also so tired of hearing how my parents did the best they could, or how they didn't mean it, or how when I bring these things up, or heating the first time I tell people things that it is about time I started practicing "acceptance.". Right now the last thing I am going to do is be accepting.  I have spent my life being accepting of my parent's faults, mostly because they taught me I should be that way.

[Sneezy]

I am also so tired of hearing how my parents did the best they could, or how they didn't mean it, or how when I bring these things up, or heating the first time I tell people things that it is about time I started practicing "acceptance.". Right now the last thing I am going to do is be accepting.  I have spent my life being accepting of my parent's faults, mostly because they taught me I should be that way.

You do not have to accept anything.  In fact, it sounds like much of your parents' behavior was completely unacceptable.  It broke my heart to hear of your poor cats.  What an awful way to treat both them and you.  It must have been devastating as a child to see such lack of compassion from your parents.

I wish I had some advice to give, but the best I can say is that you need to take care of yourself and love yourself.  It sounds like you were an abandoned and neglected child.  Take care of your inner child, nurture and heal yourself.  You have said your goodbyes to your mother.  Now focus on moving forward and taking care of you.

[nanotech]

Don't be guilted or shamed by the pressure of social norms. Other people haven't been through it and they don't know.
Mental abuse is as much to deal with as physical injury.
No one would force a wounded soldier, away from danger now, and just beginning to heal, to return to the bloody battlefield.

It's documented ( Toxic Parents by Susan Foreward) and it's also my own experience, that a serious illness in PDs creates a chaotic explosion and a malicious outpouring of blame and shame on the scapegoated family member.
I think you are right to keep detached.

I'm sorry you've been homeless and I hope you have a roof now. I'm sorry she at all wasn't concerned about you. We all deserve unconditional love.

[1footouttadefog]

Your mother has set the pace of contact in the relationship
  It sounds like your visit was perfect according to the pace she has set.

You are honoring who she really is in responding according to her according to her preferences in contacting you so infrequently.

We are all made to feel this or that is correct according to preconceived constructs about familial interactions. In reality many of these are the basis of fiction like we see on TV or in books and movies.

Don't be ashamed about the reality of who your family is. Your control over your overall reality is primarily over yourself alone.

Your mother has a home and is being cared for by professionals.

Take care of you.  Build yourself back up holistically.  Take care of all facets of who you are.

I hope your mother has as little pain and turmoil as possible in her end stage.

I hope you find yourself on the path to your best possible life soon.

I will toss one thing out from my experience.  In many cases siblings, cousins etc from families with PDs have concepts of who each other are that have been greatly filtered through the pd members of the family.  Some were better and some were worse than who we thought them to be.  Much incorrect info has been passed about by the pd folks.