There comes a moment when you realize that some wounds never fully mend—they simply become a part of who you are.
That moment hit me hard at age 32, standing in the rain beside my grandmother’s grave. She was the only person who had ever offered me unwavering, unconditional love.
Not far away, my mother—Pamela—stood beneath an umbrella with her picture-perfect family, eyes never once meeting mine.
I hadn’t seen her in years—not since she decided my younger brother deserved her love and I didn’t. She chose him. She built a life with him. I was the one she left behind.
Rain soaked through my black dress as they lowered Grandma Brooke into the ground. Meanwhile, my mother stayed dry, nestled under her umbrella, her husband Charlie and their golden child, Jason, by her side. The family she always wanted—without me.
Her tears weren’t real. Just a dab at the corners of her eyes, like she was playing a part.
After the ceremony, she walked away without a word. Just like she did 22 years ago when I was only ten—sending me to live with my grandmother like I was an unwanted burden.
I stayed behind, unable to move, whispering to the wind, “I don’t know how to live without you, Grandma.”
I was born of a fleeting affair, a mistake my mother never wanted to keep. Once she married Charlie and had Jason, it was clear—I no longer fit into her picture.
“You’ll be living with Grandma now,” she told me.
I remember blinking, confused. “Just for the weekend?”
“No. For good.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
She let out a sigh of frustration. “Stop making this harder. I have a real family now. You’re just… in the way.”
That night, I packed my things and moved into Grandma’s warm, safe home.
She welcomed me with open arms, hung my crayon drawings on her fridge, stayed up late helping with school projects, and whispered every night that she’d never leave me.
Even with all the love she gave, the ache of being abandoned never completely faded.
One night I asked, “Why doesn’t she love me?”
Grandma softly brushed my hair. “Some people don’t know how to give the love they’re supposed to. That’s not your fault, Becca. It never was.”
“But she loves Jason,” I murmured.
“She’s broken, sweetheart. And broken people sometimes hurt others just to hide from their own pain.”
When I was eleven, Grandma tried to bridge the gap—arranging a family dinner, hoping to reconnect us.
I held onto a tiny shred of hope, believing maybe, just maybe, my mother would look at me and remember I mattered.
But she only had eyes for Jason, doting on him as if I were invisible.
I handed her a card I had made—each detail carefully drawn, a smiling image of the family I wished we could be.
She barely looked at it before passing it to Jason.
“That was for you,” I said quietly.
She didn’t even glance at me. “I already have everything I want.”
That was the moment I stopped trying…