Good morning Eileen, I am so sorry, but it is the same for me too, not seen or heard from a soul since last Tuesday when I asked my daughter in law if she would like to meet up for lunch (I paid as usual). I have texted them but no reply. When our dad died when he was 57 years old, my mum was only 55, and from that day on, she never, ever spent a bank holiday, Easter, Christmas, Mothers day etc. on her own, whenever we went out for the day, we took her with us, I honestly cannot remember having a holiday without my mum being there unless we went to America or Canada as it was too far for her and she didn’t like Spain.
My sister couldn’t help as she was depressed from losing her twin girls, I had also lost a baby a few weeks before, I was 20 weeks pregnant but I carried on with the help of Peter, then a few years later my sister died of cancer. My mum was always at their house, cooking and cleaning for my sister, but it was me and Peter that took my mum out everywhere. We took her to Italy for a week, we were going to take her to Rome the year after but she died a few months before, that was 19 years ago.
It has always been just me and Peter, and when I think of how he worked all week, then went to our sons houses to put in extra lights, and decorated for them to save them money, he would be horrified if he knew I had to pay for everything I needed doing. He made them promise to look after me, yes the first year they did then it all stopped. The excuse I get when I ask them for anything is, we have busy lives. We had busy lives with no-one to look after them when they were young, but we childminded which I still do their children and it has never, ever cost them a penny,a bunch of flowers or chocolates now and again would be appreciated.
I have told them before, that I never see any neighbours, and with not hearing from them for a week at a time, sometimes more if I am not childminding, I could be laid on the floor and until they tried to contact me and I didn’t answer they would not know there was anything wrong until they came to see what the problem was, and what would it look like if I had died and our sons only lived 20 minutes away from me and had not seen me or contacted me for nearly two weeks.
I rang my mum every single night and she rang me every single morning, and if she didn’t ring me, I rang her. The times I rang her at night and she didn’t answer so we jumped in the car and drove over to her house, she said she was tired and went to bed early. We didn’t have mobile phones then.
I have even looked after all our grandchildren whilst both our sons and their wives went to a party, the sad thing was, it was a birthday party for one of our son’s wives parents, everyone was there but me, brothers, aunts, uncles, sisters, nephews etc. but all I was good for was childminding.
To be honest, I am fed up with them and I am getting to think I would rather not see them at all, but then I would miss our grandchildren even though I only see them when I look after them.
I have neighhbours who are widowed and their family take them shopping, take them out for lunch, meet them for afternoon tea, the difference is, they have daughters. The saying, A daughter’s a daughter for all of her life, a son is a son ‘till he gets him a wife’ is so true.
Our eldest son takes me on holiday once a year, because he has a lot of holidays and his friends and girlfriend don’t have as many as he does, so he asks me to go with him for company rather than go alone. We have a great time and he has said that he likes to go with me because I don’t moan and I enjoy walking and will try anything food wise, so I get a weeks holiday a year for which I am grateful. I pay of course.
Sorry for the moan, anyway, going to spray weedkiller after lunch and then tomorrow, paint the garden fence. Nothing else to do.
Lots of love.
Sheila xx
