I think we can clean up our relationships until the other person dies and we can learn from the relationship even after they have.

I remember when my stepmother got more and more senile and even before we knew she was becoming senile, she had "forgotten" details of our relationship from long ago and it was clear her point of view about the relationship was different from my experience. That was a big relief; some of the things that were hurting me about having hurt her, it turned out weren't hurting her! :-)

One of my favorite lessons of all time was when she was senile and would call me on the phone and we'd get to discussing something and then get in an argument and she'd hang up angry/critical. But often she'd call again in a few minutes and start the whole conversation over again, unaware we'd just talked! It was great to know the "outcome" of one way of discussing and to be able to change how I worded things to see if I could get my point across better or could get through the conversation without making her and me angry again. It showed me there is a whole lot more going on than I was aware of and my thinking/feeling aren't the same as the other person's.

Forgive yourself, Fuzzy. You didn't deliberately try to hurt your mother or react to your mother's hurting you in the way that things happened either. Nothing was done in an isolated way so that it was all your fault or all your mother's fault; it was a mixture like paint color :-) The color just ended up yucky is all and no one wanted the house painted that color but didn't have the money yet to buy more paint, a better color to cover it with. But no one knew beforehand what color it was going to come out as when they added their particular tints.