in reply to @kartwk I can only imagine. However, I am estranged from one of my sisters who decided she wanted nothing to do with me when I began showing signs of an illness. "My life coach on line told me to tell you I can only discuss recipes with you and nothing else." This year was the first year in five that I did not send her a birthday card because she did not invite me to her daughter's wedding in September. A few nights ago I started writing her a letter using AI to get me started, and as I read it, I thought, "this is so not me, I am not even going to put forth the effort."
While I was not estranged from my own mother, I knew from the moment I could remember, that she hated me, and she made no secret of this during my entire life. I can remember her lamenting how depressed she was after I was born, and how I was essentially handed off to all the women in the neighborhood after my birth. It's no wonder we never "bonded." And I really wanted a real "mom." Instead I began calling the mothers of my friends, "mom" and this made a huge difference until my mother heard me, and then all hell broke loose.
I am so sorry to hear your story, it really does resonate with me. Enjoy yourself while you are still able to do so. If there is one thing I did learn from my mother it was, "make every minute count," something I only realized and began saying as a sort of mantra after I got "sick." Afterall, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died six weeks later, which was a good thing because I knew she did not want her daughters to wind up taking care of her as she did for my father when she took care of him for 18 months before he died of leukemia. I have a vivid memory of the time when she asked her doctor how much time she had left, and he said at best 6 months. Her response was, "well, I could step off a curb and get hit by a bus tomorrow......"

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