I know it's coming. The email from my mother is coming. This Thanksgiving, it will be 2 years since we have spoken. I know that she's going to start trying to reach out, and I have already decided that it will be handled over the phone when the time comes. No email back and forth. No interference or influence from my father. In fact, if he insists on getting on the phone, I will not speak with my mother, either. He's volatile, disrespectful and refuses to accept that I am an autonomous adult. Here is my mind dump.
*****
I wanted to talk to you on the phone because I don't want to turn this into an email relay. I just want to talk to you about where I have come with all of this.
When I wrote my apology note in April, you wrote back and said that you forgave me. You never apologized for any of the things that you did or said, but you accepted my apology.
Months later, in July, within days of each other, I received emails from both Dad and S.
Those two emails crushed me. I won't even elaborate on the vast differences between our view of what happened and the view that the three of you have clearly discussed and agreed upon, because S and Dad's emails were almost identical in certain parts. S told me that he had never liked me, called me a bully, accused me of being a domineering mother, accused me of physically attacking you and then told me that he hoped that someone knocks me down a few pegs and only wishes he would be there when it happens. If you don't have a copy of that one, you should ask him for it.
Dad re-wrote my entire apology letter, telling me what it should have said, brought up things that happened more than 20 years ago that had nothing to do with the context of the situation nor any relevance to anything that had happened, and sealed his letter by telling me that he did not accept my apology because I had not accepted responsibility for what happened. In other words, I had knocked on the door and it had been slammed shut.
I don't know if you read S's email, but I know that Dad carbon copied you on his. He wanted to make sure that I knew that you had seen it, because he could have blind copied you and I never would have known whether you even knew about his response. But, you did know. And, you said nothing. You could have emailed me and told me that those were not your views. You could have called me and told me that you disagreed with the things that they had said, told me that they were out of line, that you told them not to send the letters. But, you didn't. Your silence spoke volumes to me. You let those words resonate in my head, knowing what they said, and you did not defend me.
I will always love you. But, I don't see how this is mendable.
The worst part of all was that those emails were not said in the heat of the moment, like the events in the argument. Those emails were sent 3 months after my apology letter and 8 months after the argument happened. The purpose of those emails was not to mend fences or create a bridge. They were meant for the sole purpose of burning the bridge. And, that's what they have done. Even if I could bear to be in the same room, how could I ever get beyond knowing, "Well, I know exactly what they think about me as a person."
All a person has is his apology. I can offer nothing more. My character has been attacked, my apology has not been accepted and there is nothing else to say. I have accepted that and have had to move on.
