I can believe it. I've seen similar situations before (fortunately, my Mom "didn't agree" with my orientation - until I came out. She realized it was her who had been thinking incorrectly all those years, and immediately accepted my homosexuality. She died 5 years ago, without ever once pretending she didn't love me.) The "well-married" children are too self-absorbed in their own lives to have even considered that their mom needed care, too self-absorbed to think it was their responsibility.I can't believe her other kids turned her down and left her with nowhere to live (that's really fucked up) and the only one willing to take her in was the one she hadn't been treating fairly. I'm sure her son felt a lot better about this too. Knowing that his mother finally accepted him for what he is.
My siblings, while not quite this bad, had some similar qualities. At one point, when Mom was not able to get around well enough to do some things for herself but not totally disabled, three of my sibs lived in the same city, and two sibs lived about 30 miles away. I lived about 170 miles away, with a very demanding teaching job in the public schools. But my brothers and sisters expected me to do a lot of Mom's care, such as yard work. I would get home on Friday afternoon, after school, drive three hours, stay the night at Mom's house, work there all day on Saturday, stay the night, and drive 3 hours home early Sunday morning to grade papers and work on lesson plans. I asked one sister why she didn't help more, and her answer left me stunned: "I have a family to take care of; you obviously have more free time since you are single." That family she was taking care of consisted of herself, her 14-year-old son, and her husband. I tried to explain to her that being single actually left me less time, since I simply did not have the option of saying, "I have to go help Mom; John, I want you to clean the kitchen and do the laundry... Mark, I need to you mow the yard and go to the grocery store." No, every chore that got done, I had to do myself, I couldn't delegate ANY of it. None of my "well-married" sibs ever let that cross their minds. One had no children, the others had sons in their teens, and they all had spouses... but I had more time to spend 6 hours driving and then do chores for Mom. Right.
I saw both sides to the story, so I was not quite "moved to tears."Was I the only one who found this story more upsetting than touching? I mean, sure it's convenient now for the mom to reconnect with her son, when she needs something from him. Sounds to me like she didn't deserve to have such a forgiving child.
Quite, quite true, NIC. I was a little surprised when I met you, because your in-person demeanor does not match your appearance or your online posts. I didn't expect you to be so quiet and laid-back, or to have such a dry wit.Why does everyone often assume I need to calm down?
Talk to Lex, DC, anyone who has met me in person... I'm calm. I'm about as mellow as they come. You can disagree with the group and be calm.
If anyone wants to get my posts as they were intended they'd do well to read each of them and imagine as if I was speaking in a deadpan monotone. That's how I'm usually thinking them.
That's the one part of the story that bothered me... I'm sure it was not the intent of the old mother, or of Abby, but the undertone of the story was "treat your queers however you want throughout life, then make the end-of-life conversion and they'll forgive all and take care of you.""they're lucky enough to have one who will take them in "
Get your gays, get while their hot and fresh. They'll take care of you when your outa options. Gays, get them TODAY!