Last fall I got a diagnosis that i am going blind. I accepted it, in part, by taking stock and realizing I had only one regret in life and that was my bad relationship with my mom. And then I realized that I am lucky because she is still alive so I can still work on my relationship with her. To get to my age and situation and have only one regret--and to have that one regret be something I can still try to do something about! What a wonderful world! So I am working on my relationship with my mother. But that is not the point of my addition to this thread. Here is my sad story: when I was trying to pay my way through college and raise a 2-year-old, and had no insurance to treat my diabetes or my mental sicknesses, I would sometimes call my mom and try to tell her about my desperate situation--just talk and tell someone. Turn to one's mother, right? She would hang up on me. She talked to me until I said something negative, like, my transmission went out on my car and I've been dragging my toddler through the snow to school because I am too weak to carry him.... "Well, I need to go now." Click. So I do not know what it is like to be told by my mother that I should try harder, or that I am focusing too much on my problems. She never told me anything because she wouldn't even listen to it. Nothing hurts more than being ignored by the one person everyone should be able to go to when in distress. Hurts. Then finally, she began to get older. She had pains. She had problems. I encouraged her to talk to me, and I listened, and I sympathized. I didn't often try to give advice, but I repeated her sorrow and said, "that must feel really awful" Or I said, "yes, but you can be proud that you kept Daddy out of the hospital for 25 years all on your own while holding down the only family income." When she needed surgery I told her that if she could stand it until my summer break I would come to her and nurse her through her pain and take care of my dad for her. I didn't "forgive" her. And I'm not an angel. I just treated her as I would want to be treated. And you know what? She is learning from me. After almost 50 years of being each other's enemy, she is learning from my example how to be ... not nurturing exactly, but ... how to be kind. And that it's not so hard. I'm still not sure if I have forgiven her. I think of all the pain she put me and my baby through, and I don't know. But I can be kind when she needs kindness because she is a human being. That's all I know. And maybe by being kind, I might help her forgive herself. They're never too old to learn, our parents. Maybe they have to know what it's like to be vulnerable, and to need kindness, before they understand what it is. Maybe they never learned. Time, and hope.