I did send my mom cards on mothers day. I never sent my dad anything. If he was upset about this, he never told me. He was probably smart enough to know how that conversation would go. My mom appreciated the cards, she said that they brightened her day.
I refuse to be a hypocrite. I choose to express myself honestly. Since I had no “love” for my dad, I did not pretend to like him. I was not mean to him, I just did not have anything to do with him.
While some of my sisters have had hard thoughts about my “relationship” with my father, or lack there in, that is their choice. Today, most of my sisters have told me that they wish that they had had the courage to reject our father from their lives as my brother & I did. Dad abused them until the day he died. I never understood why they chose to put up with his abuse.
I’ve been away from the computer and phone for 24 hours, but just wanted to come back and say thanks for the continued support in this thread. And thanks to stillownedbysetters for your kind words. I have been thinking of visiting my mother over Christmas- she is ~6 hours away. She hasn’t invited me and I feel it can be rude to invite yourself usually, but you should be able to invite yourself to your own mother’s, and I’d like to see her.
My brother is publicly mourning on Facebook and I find it weird. My dad treated him the worst of anybody. Maybe he just likes the sympathy, maybe he had Stockholm Syndrome, but whatever.
Our father was just a run-of-the-mill jerk and I wasn’t sad when he died. I wasn’t sad when our mother died, either. It was a relief. My mother once told me, “If you feel guilty about something either do something about it or just stop feeling guilty.” So I took her advice and didn’t feel guilty about it.