Last night, I went through a box from my moms things. It was an old shoe box labeled “Master Bedroom”. It was full of greeting cards that my mom had saved over the years. Mostly from the last 4-5 years before she died. It seemed like it was only ones she had collected from the time that she & her boyfriend started to see each other.

Speaking of her boyfriend, I should give a little background on him. He & my mom went to school together in Sacramento. They dated in junior high. My mom dropped out of school in 9th grade and lost contact with him. Fast forward 60 years and they ran into each other again at a funeral and instantly picked up where they left off. Except for one thing, he had a girlfriend and lied to my mom about it. Well, my mom was devastated and didn’t speak to him for another couple of years. Then his girlfriend died and he came crawling back to my mom and she was ok with it and he ended up moving from Montana to California and in with my mom. When he came here everything changed. My mom’s health declined, she stopped spending as much time with me and my daughters. He was always rude and just gave me a weird feeling like he was up to something. I even did a background check on him, which is not something I usually do, just because I felt he was no good. It came out clean, but really, those things can’t tell you everything you want to know. Anyways, he stayed with my mom until the end and then moved out of my moms place and in with his daughter in Sacramento. I haven’t spoken to him once since he left but now, I am feeling like I need to say a few words to him before he dies (he has lung cancer and was diagnosed a week after my mom died from it).

Which leads me back to what I found in that box of cards. As I was looking through the many birthday greeting, christmas cards and whatnot, I came to a stack of cards held together by a rubber band. I took the rubber band off and noticed they were all “In Sympathy” cards for my mom’s passing. None of which I had ever seen. I opened one after the other and read them. They were all addressed to Carl, or to Carl and my 2 girls. Not a single one of those cards mentioned me. These cards were from my Aunt’s and Uncle’s and cousins, and second cousins. People I’ve known, and assumed were my family, my entire life. But not one of them said anything about me. This morning when I woke up, I said something to my daughter about it and I burst into tears. I didn’t realize how much it hurt, to know that not one of my family members cared enough to let me know they were thinking of me during that time. And since then, not one of them have ever contacted me or anything.

So my question now is, I want to contact Carl, and tell him how I feel about him coming into my moms life & because of his dislike for me, he ruined my relationship with my mom which in turn turned my entire family against me and now, I have no one. I feel he needs to know what he has done and get this burden off my chest and on to his, where it rightfully belongs. Am I wrong?