*”Couldn’t care for her own mother, but suddenly has the energy to drag me to court!”*
When I was a little girl, my whole world was my grandmother. She was the one who raised me, taught me about life, kissed my scraped knees when I fell, and held me close whenever my mother vanished yet again in search of “her happiness.” Mum was always off somewhere—with one man or another—and she never had the time or the will to spare for me. She’d drift in like a visitor, just for a day or two, offering a few empty words and a look of indifference, before disappearing again.
But Nan… Nan was everything. She was my mother, my friend, my rock. She gave me all of herself—her time, her love, her last quid. Even after I grew up and moved to Manchester for uni, Nan remained my dearest, my most cherished. But fate, cruel as it is, had other plans. She fell gravely ill, needing round-the-clock care. I dropped out of school and rushed home. Money was tight, and I begged Mum for help. But every time, all I got were wails and excuses:
*”I can barely stand on my own two feet… My blood pressure, my heart, my joints—you’ve no idea how bad it is. I could end up disabled!”*
Day after day, I listened, baffled—why was she saying this if she had no intention of helping? One evening, Nan caught my confusion and whispered quietly:
*”She’s building herself an alibi for later. So no one can accuse her of neglecting her own mother. After all, she was ‘too sick’ to lift a finger.”*
And sure enough, Mum never missed a chance to play up her “frailty”—until Nan signed the flat over to me. A few years later, after Nan passed, something miraculous happened. Mum, suddenly brimming with vitality and conveniently free of ailments, marched straight to court. Claiming I’d manipulated Nan, that she hadn’t been in her right mind, that the deed and the will were invalid. Then came the flood—paperwork, hearings, legal motions. I couldn’t fathom how she had the stamina for it. Just weeks before, she could barely walk, and now she was dashing between solicitors’ offices for hours on end.
With every passing day, I grew more horrified—at the sheer greed, the venom inside her. Where was all this energy when Nan needed help? Where was this fight when I, a twenty-year-old girl, was struggling to care for a bedridden woman with no money, no support? Back then, all she did was sob down the phone about how *she* was suffering. But now? She was unstoppable—sharp, relentless, spinning wild tales to anyone who’d listen about how *her* poor mother was robbed, how *she* was the victim, betrayed and left penniless.
Yet she never spent a single day at Nan’s bedside. Never sat through the long nights. Never bought so much as a pill. That was all on me. Only I saw how Nan winced in pain, how she clenched her teeth, how she gasped for water in the dark. Only I held her hand as it turned cold, listened to her final breath, and wept over her still body.
The day Nan signed the flat over to me, she looked me in the eye and said:
*”I don’t want your mother getting a single thing. You were there. Only you. This is yours. You earned it.”*
I don’t want revenge. I don’t want war. But I won’t let anyone—not even my own mother—trample the wishes of the woman who gave me everything. I’ll fight—not for bricks and mortar, but for what it represents. For love. For justice.
Let Mum take me to court. Let her spin her stories, play the grieving daughter. I know the truth. And as long as I have a voice, I won’t let her bury it.
