Not invited to the wedding because I was “not family,” but suddenly I was “like a mother” when it came to my flat.
My son got married nearly a decade ago. His wife, Emily, had been married before and brought a daughter from her first marriage into our family. I welcomed them both as my own, with open arms and no second thoughts. Over the years, I did my best to support the young couplesometimes helping financially, sometimes babysitting so they could catch a breath from lifes little chaos. With my daughter-in-law, things were always frosty. No full-blown rows, just a quiet chill I could never thaw.
Emilys first husband paid child support on time but couldnt be bothered with visitshed wiped his daughter from his life like a smudge on a window. Last year, my granddaughter, who I thought of as flesh and blood, got married. And thats when the knife twisted. Neither my son nor I were invited. The reason? “Family only.” Apparently, we didnt make the cutdespite my son raising her for ten years, pouring his heart into a girl he loved as his own. Meanwhile, her real father, who couldnt pick her out of a lineup, swanned about at the wedding like hed earned the right.
It hit me like a bad pintsour and sudden. Id cheered her first steps, slipped her pocket money, loved her like she was mine. And in return? A shrug and a locked door. My son stayed quiet, but I saw the hurt in his eyesswallowed whole, festering. The injustice sat like a stone in my chest.
Last year, I inherited a cosy little flat near York. Nothing fancy, just enough to pad my modest pension and keep the heating on. Thenring ring. Emily calls, sweet as syrup, voice dripping with a warmth Id never heard before. Turns out, my “granddaughter” is expecting, and the young couple have nowhere to live. Could I, by any chance, let them have the flat? I nearly choked on my tea. At the wedding, we were strangersunwanted extras. Now, when a roofs needed, Im suddenly “like a mother”?
Her words left a bitter taste. I havent answered yet, but every fibre of me screams, “Not a chance!” Maybe Im clinging to old hurts, nursing this grudge like a favourite old sweater, but I cant forgive being treated like a spare part.
I dont know how my son, my sweet Daniel, puts up with itliving with a woman who acts like his love means nothing. He swallows every slight, and I watch him shrink a little more each day. Now its my turn to choose: swallow my pride again or finally dig my heels in. That flats not just bricksits my safety net, my last scrap of security. Hand it over to people who tossed me aside the second I stopped being useful? Not on your life.
Part of me still wants to be the bigger personkind, forgiving, all the things a good grandma should be. But the other part, the one tired of being walked over, hisses, “You owe them nothing.” The battle in my head never stops, and some days, I barely recognise the woman who once believed family was everything.
