I go inside and there are people everywhere. My Mom's surrogate new family, I know them. They are sitting around talking and then I see...the church pastor. I am very nonreligious and she knows this. I greet everyone politely and see my Mom peering quietly from a doorway as if scared. I feel so bad for her, I know she is worried. My brother goes over to her and she half-hugs him (strange, she adores him), while I chat with the pastor expecting that he is just there for someone else and that he is leaving. I let the pastor know that I have to tell my Mom something hard today and she might need his support later on.

He is acting strange (I know him), he quietly says yes...and is avoiding my eyes. So I go to my Mom and she backs away from me and is not looking at me and walks upstairs. The pastor suddenly stands and walks up behind her. Wtf...

So my brother and I follow them upstairs and I close the door to keep the rest of the people out. My mom is in her room so I go to hug her and say Hi but for some reason she flinches away from me and looks teary. I say mom what is wrong, it's okay! She says to me as if I am her executor, in this really fragile voice, that she is just a bit anxious. I immediately know something is up.

So we sit and the pastor sits and I look at him about to ask why he is here. My Mom goes to a loveseat and curls up into the fetal position and wraps her arms around herself and won't look at us or talk. Something big is up. My brother and I know immediately this is going to be bad.

The pastor clears his throat and speaks to us as if we are there at his meeting, being formal,saying that he is here to mediate this visit and provide support for my mother. Wtf, my mother would fight a bull for shits and giggles. She never lets a man have any say. So I start to glare and ask why is here to my mom. She bursts into tears and her lip quivers. I say I came here to talk to you, not anyone else, and why are you crying?

So to cut this story short...she told the church for years that my brother and I abuse her when she is alone with us. The pastor was there to make sure we don't attack her. Us. This woman, who locked us in closets and mentally tortured us and hit us as children, is accusing US of abusing her. I just raged.

I said how could you do this? I said if you want to know you will apologize. I called her out on laughing at me two days after my son died and told me my anger at her was just my grief and I needed to stop taking it out on her (she had posted my sons picture and oue names and his death story all over hospitals without our consent two days after he died). She acted all confused and said NO I NEVER did that and I was lying. The pastor pastors went on about forgiveness to US.

I told him to get out. He refused. I said I was leaving. He said well tell us first. I said not until she admits fault. She cried and curled up more. She then got angry and said she had had 4 miscarriages so my son dying was harder on her than for me. I the told her she was a selfish woman.

The pastor then tells me to stop verbally abusing my mother. I tell him that he can't see a wolf in his sheep. He doesn't get it.

I give her one last chance. I say if you want justice for your grandson, you will apologize and admit my grief is more. She refused and sneered at me. We left.

That was the day my mother died.

Her ghost sometimes haunts me. The week of my birthday it emailed me how she was in a shack in the jungle in Belize (the place my husband and I had said we wanted to go to to grieve alone). She actually went. And of course "went dark" mid-adventure hoping I would worry. I can't worry for the dead.

I have to grieve my mother and my son. Just cut these people out. They are evil. It will never end. They can't be saved.

Thank you. Sorry to make this sound very dramatic just I had to get it out. I don't need condolences, or attention, I just need someone to gain something from my experiences.