Sorry for the absence...

We had a death in the family.  My MIL died after a 9 month battle with brain cancer.

Her death caused lots of strife between my husband and myself.   Plainly put, I didn't really like her.  But not for the normal "over involved, not good enough for my son" reasons you might think.  Rather, it's because she was a crappy mom.  She took off when my husband was 10, leaving him and his siblings in the care of a bipolar, alcoholic father.  They didn't hear from her for two years, even though she was in the same state less than 400 miles away.  She needed to "find herself". 

When she did come back, she spent the next 25 years coming in and out of my husband, and by extension, my life.  She'd pout if she wasn't included in something, yet she wouldn't have known my kids from Adam if they were walking down the street.  Yet to hear her tell it, she was a loving and involved grandmother.  In 21 years, she never attended or remembered any of my kids birthdays or Christmas.  But there would be hell to pay if we forgot hers.

She would guilt my husband in to loaning her money we didn't have for her hare brained get rich quick schemes.  Just when it would appear that things were settling down and starting to work out, she would purposely sabotage things and pick up and leave.  She left a good job, a house and my then 17 year old brother in law in Laughlin, Nevada so she could go pursue her next opportunity.  She didn't tell him what she was planning- she just called while he was out visiting us to tell him that she wouldn't be there when he got back, and the rent was paid through the end of the month (2 weeks away).

This is a woman who abandoned her kids emotionally, physically and financially for her entire life.  To say it screwed them all up is an understatement.  As a result, my husband took on the care of 4 younger siblings at at time when he should have been playing with Star Wars figurines.  He's never seen a normal family that works up close.  He has no role model for being a either a father or a husband.

So fast forward on to her death.  Despite all that this woman had put him through, my husband always had hope she would change.  Her death means that won't ever happen and my husband will always be left wanting.  He's turned back in to a scared and lost little boy, and I don't know how to help him.  Instead, he spends hours on the phone with his brothers and sisters,  pulling further and further away from me and our daughters.  Between funeral arrangements, left over bills and one sibling who refused to attend, it caused stress.

So I'm angry.  Even in death, she's managed to screw him up even further. And I'm not allowed to say a word about it.  If I do, I'm not supportive.  So I bite my tongue and grow even angrier at someone who didn't give a hoot about what I though while she was alive, and certainly doesn't care now.