When I was a little girl, my world was my grandma. She’s the one who raised me, taught me about life, kissed my scraped knees when I fell, and held me close whenever Mum vanished off again chasing “her happiness.” Mum was always on the move—one bloke after another—and she never had the time or energy left for me. She’d turn up like a guest—just for a day or two, with a few empty words and a stranger’s indifference in her eyes—then disappear again.
But Gran… Gran was everything. She was my mum, my best friend, my rock. She gave me everything—her time, her love, her last quid. Even when I grew up and left for uni in another city, she stayed my closest, most precious person. But then, as luck would have it, life had other plans—she got seriously ill and needed round-the-clock care. I dropped out of uni and came straight home. Money was tight, so I asked Mum for help. But every time, all I got was moaning and excuses:
“I can barely stand on my own two feet… My blood pressure’s through the roof, my heart’s giving me grief, my joints ache… You’ve no idea how hard it is for me. I might end up disabled!”
Hearing this day after day, I was lost—why even say it if she wasn’t going to lift a finger? Gran saw my confusion and, one quiet evening, told me:
“She’s laying the groundwork for an alibi. So no one can say she didn’t take care of her own mum. See? She was ‘too poorly’ to help.”
And sure enough, Mum never missed a chance to play up her “frailty”—until Gran put the flat in my name. Then, a couple of years later, when Gran passed, something incredible happened. Mum, suddenly full of energy and “forgetting” all her ailments, went straight to court. Claimed I’d taken advantage of Gran, that she hadn’t been “in her right mind,” and the will and deed should be voided. And then the circus began—legal papers, claims, hearings… I couldn’t believe how she managed it: one minute she was “too weak to stand,” the next she’s racing between solicitors like an Olympic sprinter.
Every day, I couldn’t help but wonder—where was all this rage and greed when Gran needed help? Where was this energy when I, a twenty-year-old girl, was drowning, trying to care for a bedridden woman with no money and no support? Back then, all she did was sob down the phone about how *she* was suffering. Now? Full of beans, sharp as a tack. Spinning yarns to anyone who’ll listen about how her poor, defenceless mother was “robbed” of her inheritance, how *she* was the victim.
Never mind that she never spent a single night at Gran’s bedside. Never bought her so much as a packet of paracetamol. It was all on me. Only I saw how Gran suffered, how she clenched her teeth in pain, how she drifted in and out of consciousness, how she whispered for water in the dead of night. Only I held her hand as it went cold, heard her last breath, wept by her pillow…
When Gran signed the flat over to me, she looked me in the eye and said:
“I don’t want your mother getting a single penny. You were there—only you. This is yours. You’ve earned it.”
I don’t want revenge. I don’t want a war. But I won’t let anyone—not even my own mother—trample on the wishes of the woman who gave me everything. I’ll fight for this—not for the flat, but for *her*. For love. For what’s right.
Let Mum file her claims, spin her tales, play the grieving daughter. *I* know the truth. And as long as I’ve got a voice, I won’t let her rewrite it.
