My stepmom got very ill, in a vegetative state for months before she died. Her daughter bailed, “I’m not here to change her diapers.” I cared for her till her last breath. At the funeral, her will left everything to her daughter. I didn’t care. Next day, her daughter called, sobbing and yelling.
Turns out, my stepmom had left her something she didn’t know how to handle. That was the part her daughter blurted between angry tears: responsibility. The house she inherited was falling apart, full of medical equipment still waiting to be removed, bills stacked like fragile towers, and more than anything, the crushing knowledge that she hadn’t been there. As she ranted, I realized the phone call wasn’t about money or property at all—it was about guilt she couldn’t name. She demanded explanations, demanded to know why her mother had “burdened” her. I listened quietly, the way I had listened during so many long nights beside her mother’s hospital bed, but this time there was nothing for me to fix.
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