The Gift Meant to Be a Curse

 I've not shared this story anywhere else but I have to get it off my chest and let it go utterly and completely.  Since this blog is little viewed I feel safe sharing it here.

This past year as the holidays wound down Mama went off the charts angry and determined to create chaos.  This has been an annual thing for as long as I can remember but this year it was harsher and more hateful than ever.  

Unfortunately, what she demanded was impossible to 'fix' as she herself, in an effort to control us all, had set the parameters in place and legally there was no way around them.   It began three years ago when Katie's marriage broke up.  Katie had nowhere to live and Mama offered her house to Katie.   Katie offered to pay rent.  Mama deemed it unnecessary.

The house was in a horrible state.  Mama had refused to keep it properly cool or heated and it had sweated and mildewed inside.  There was a LOT Of stuff in the house.  A LOT.  Katie shifted what she could, we cleaned for all we were worth and then Katie moved in, living in only a portion of the house because the rest was filled with Mama's things.  

I'd worked  in the house, clearing out trash and clutter.  I loaded the trash can full to overflowing each week and then hauled loads and loads and loads of things to the dumpsters.  When Katie moved in we moved things into the shed of the place that I felt Mama might want to keep, and then we loaded up the smallest bedroom with her things that remained.   And still there was loads of Mama's things in the house.

Mama refused to sign a lease. She refused to allow Katie to put the utilities in her name either.  Instead she insisted that Katie would pay only for utilities, give her cash each month and she'd handle payments herself.  

For the first six months, while Katie's job held out, Mama did however, feel free to criticize every choice Katie was forced to make during that period of her life.  Because of the hours Katie had to work, plus the hour and a half travel back and forth and the fact that her job involved weekends, Katie was unable to have her daughter stay with her.  There was an amicable agreement between Katie and her ex that her daughter would stay with him, in her own school and among her familiar friends.  Mama felt that Katie was shunning her responsibilities.  I felt she had had to make some very hard decisions and she'd made them with her daughter's best interests in mind rather than based on what she herself wanted.  She supported her daughter financially and visited with her regularly.

When Katie's job ended unexpectedly, and  before she was able to find another, Mama suddenly demanded rent as well as utilities.  There was no way it could be paid of course.  John and I offered to pay the utilities and a portion of the rent Mama  wanted.  Mama refused.  She was going to make Katie pay and learn to take responsibility for herself she said.  I pointed out the futility of her demands since Katie didn't have a job.   I suggested our paying utilities would help to offset her own outlay.  Mama adamantly refused.  

Katie got a job, and with her first check went to pay Mama and we started the whole song and dance over again.  Mama would refuse to accept payment from Katie, citing that she had helped another grandchild, or was gifting money to this or that one and Katie could 'just keep it..."  Until of course, she was again unemployed due to a car accident.  

Katie was injured, not seriously, but she had a recovery spell of about six-eight weeks due to her injury.  She was also pregnant and by the time the recovery period was over she was about 7 months along.   I didn't see any point in Katie's getting a job until after she'd given birth.  I felt that she was unlikely to get a decent job anywhere when she was so obviously nearly due.  Who hires anyone to go on maternity leave in two months?   John and I took care of her living expenses.  I was her chauffeur too and took her to do her grocery shopping and to appointments, etc. 

I suggested again to Mama during this time that we pay the utilities.  No.  She meant for Katie to pay and pay now!  She must learn to be responsible, etc.  I attempted to give Katie money to pay Mama but Mama would then refuse it.  And the next time I visited with her she would complain over Katie's lack of payment of utilities.

I'd suggested many times that Mama consider selling the house but that was also rejected.  The house was not being maintained in any manner, she refused to have any work done on it.   She refused to allow Katie to do anything that might be considered maintenance, i.e. trimming of shrubs, painting the peeling front door,  etc.  The house was poorly maintained overall as I said and any work done at anyone's expense caused her to become extremely incensed.  The back deck had a big sink hole and when Katie's partner repaired it with wood he purchased himself, Mama was so livid she threatened Katie and myself with legal action!  

This state of affairs went on for two years.  Two years of me hearing from Mama weekly that Katie wasn't doing her part, wasn't being responsible, wasn't offering to pay, a point of fact I knew to be a lie since I myself was with Katie during all of her visits to Mama.  Katie had given up visiting Mama alone many many years ago because Mama had a habit of attacking Katie verbally.  Katie is not myself.  She'd jump right back at Mama, but Katie herself suggested it best if she visited in my presence.  "I know you don't want me to be disrespectful to her Mama and I won't be if you're there..."  I also knew it was a safety measure on Katie's part as Mama always denied her own attacks of Katie even though she did have a habit of calling me in the midst of them to scream at me as well.

Mama became incensed at the idea that Katie might have the baby's father even visit the house  after the baby was born and wanted to restrict her from having any visitors at all.  She didn't want any friends or family to visit with Katie, as she said, she would be liable for any and all visitors.  She made many other demands that were in my opinion unreasonable and controlling and I said as much to her.  She harped continually that it was HER house and she could do what she wanted.   Katie began to look for a new place to live even though she was struggling to buy herself a car (she was borrowing one from us to use to get to work).

At some point Katie stopped offering to pay rent or even attempting to pay Mama for utilities.  Katie had taken the step of no longer asking Mama how much she owed but had acquired the account numbers to the utilities and begun paying them online.  That incensed Mama still further.  Never mind that the bills were being paid, they were HER bills!   

It seemed to me at that point that there was no satisfying her no matter what anyone did.  Mama began to leave horrible voice messages for Katie and sending hateful texts and even more hateful letters.   She'd state that she expected to be paid this amount for rent and wanted it by June, then August, and lastly she wanted rent by January but not until then.  Mama personally attacked me and my character during each visit I made with her during this time and made it clear that she felt we were all robbing her, including in the list all family members, mine and otherwise.  Each time I came prepared to pay what was owed and each time she would adamantly refuse the moment I'd say as much and reach for my checkbook because she remembered she'd sent Katie a letter and didn't want rent until such and such a date.  

And so we came to the holidays this year with Mama in a perpetual state of upset and anger.  I am not denying her right to have had rent or utilities paid but her equally stubborn refusal to accept either was beyond frustrating.  It seemed to me that she felt if rent was paid she'd lose control in some way.  And yet, she was continually frustrating herself and berating us for the  lack of payment even when she herself had written or stated that she didn't want rent until January 2021.  

Just before the holidays started she began to insist that she wanted to 'give' me the house.  I declined the offer, citing that it was hers and should remain hers should she need it at any point in the future for her own needs.  She began to then tell me that she wanted to give it to me as my portion of inheritance and that she wanted to give my brother a cash amount equal to half the value of the house.  And Mama, though she wanted to give the house to me, insisted that the gift included the option of her coming back to live in the house in the future.  I was to 'keep it for her'.   And that was fine but I pointed out that I couldn't very well cover maintenance on it as we were living on a reduced income. No matter.  In the meantime, I was to oust Katie and repair it for her to live there, making it handicap accessible.

John had retired.  We had lost quite a lot of his retirement account in the market crash and what was left was secured until he turned 70 in order to avoid losing another huge chunk of the remainder to taxes.  We simply didn't have the extra cash to cover the expenses of a second  house and as he rightly might do, John refused to even think of accepting the house,  saying he wouldn't pay for a home  that wasn't really going to be mine anyway if the whole purpose was to hold onto it to insure Mama's future.     

I simply couldn't afford it financially and I told Mama so truthfully.  Her anger increased still more.  I seriously began to fear that she'd have a stroke this past year and yet I was so over trying to offer solutions that were continually refused and over, too, hearing how loathsome I and all my children were and how we were robbing her, too.  It became a continuous battle until I finally said I would no longer discuss the house with her,  period. 

For Christmas this year, I was given the deed to the house.  And when she handed it to me, Mama said "And I hope it brings you to full financial ruin," as a final blessing.  There was no legal attachment of herself to the house.  It was to be solely mine to do with as I saw fit.  That was December 23.

I came home and decided that the very first thing to be done was to sort out the mess and see where I'd ended up.  I started with utility companies, trying to get utilities out of Mama's name.   As a Christmas present to Katie, I discovered that Mama had called both the electric and water facilities and attempted to have the utilities cut off even though the bills were paid in full until January.  She'd left the clerks with horrible impressions as Mama had cursed them.  Fortunately, because the bills had been paid by Katie for months and months, both refused to turn the utilities off because they were sure someone was living in the house.   I was assured by both entities that they'd work with Katie to put them in her name as soon as the holiday was over but in the meantime they both wished us Merry Christmas.   That was more than we'd had from Mama!

And on Christmas Day Katie came out to present John and I with a lease.  "It's the same one I tried to get Nana to sign so I could just pay her each month.  I got it online, but it's a standard legal agreement.  I know what Nana said she wanted but I figured up what I think it's going to cost you in taxes and insurance and feel this would be the more reasonable amount to pay each month.  Do you have any objection to that?"  

We paid insurance and we paid taxes.  Everything is in my name or Katie's at present.  Mama is no longer involved in any way.  

My daughter has not missed paying rent or utilities.   We still don't have enough to maintain the house but we're doing all we can ourselves  and we are at least keeping taxes and insurance paid.  That was a little consolation this month when Katie again found herself unemployed and the AC went out...

I found it difficult to even consider visiting Mama for five months.  I started back tentatively in late spring.  She's alone and lonely and I hate it, I do truly.  I know that she is old and will eventually need someone to help care for her.  But each visit she wants to talk about how good she was to give me the house or to ask if Katie is paying rent and what work have we done on the house and each visit I tell her that I will not discuss that house with her now or ever again in the future.  

During the last visit Mama spun the unbelievable story that she'd gifted the house to me so that I might have something of my own, so that I would be financially secure and have a 'real house' for the first time in my life since my husband had never been bothered to provide me with one.   Then she proceeded to tell me how much she regretted not having this item or that she'd left in the house and who knew what Katie had done with it, but if I could find it would I...?  I didn't tell her I'd told Katie that as far as I was concerned she could do whatever she wanted with what was left in that house and she might clear it out so that she could live in the whole thing since she was paying rent for a whole house.  

Mama went on to say how she'd done me a huge favor.   And I sat there sick to my stomach knowing that she'd spun  a tale to make herself the heroine and me the ungrateful, selfish, horrible child who was undeserving of kindness all over again.   Something changed in me at that moment and not for the good.  I don't want to see her.  I don't want to be around the lies any more.  Be honest and say you loathe me.  Be honest and say again "I hope it brings you financial ruin..." because at least those words were spoken truthfully.  

I am determined that my mother's curse will NOT live.  I will not be financially ruined.  I might weep at times from frustration at what where we find ourselves but I will make this house become a blessing for us, for Katie and my grandchildren, with God's help.