My husband had passed away two years before that. He left me his pension and some savings. It wasn’t a fortune, but we’d always lived simply. We didn’t take expensive vacations or buy new cars every few years. We believed in paying off what we owed and putting a little aside for emergencies.
So when Michael needed help, I had it to give.
That first transfer felt good. It felt like I was doing something that mattered. Like even though my husband was gone and my body was slowing down and my house felt too big and too quiet, I still had value. I could still protect my child.
I remember Michael calling me that first Friday afternoon.
“Mom, it went through. Thank you. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
His gratitude was genuine. I could hear the relief, the weight lifting off his shoulders.
“You’d do the same for me,” I told him.
And I believed that. I really did.
For the first few months, I’d get a text every week. A heart emoji. A quick, “Thanks, Mom.” Sometimes Clare would send a photo of the kids with a caption like, “Because of Grandma, we’re okay this week.”
It made me feel needed. Connected. Like I wasn’t just an old woman living alone with her memories and her pills in her too-quiet house.
But then something shifted.
The thank-you texts became shorter, then less frequent. Then they stopped altogether. Instead, I’d get a message on Thursday nights.
“Hey, Mom, don’t forget tomorrow.”
As if I’d ever forgotten. As if I wasn’t the one who set an alarm on my phone just to make sure it went through on time.
Then the requests started changing, too.
“Mom, could you send a little extra this week? The car needs new tires.”
“Mom, we’re behind on the water bill. Can you cover it?”
“Mom, the kids need winter coats. Could you add another hundred?”
And every time, I said yes, because that’s what mothers do. We give, we stretch, we sacrifice.
I started skipping my own doctor’s appointments because the co-pays added up. I stopped buying the good coffee and started drinking the store brand. I wore the same three sweaters all winter because I didn’t want to spend money on myself when they needed it more.
My friends at church started noticing.
One Sunday, Betty pulled me aside after service.
“Honey, are you okay? You look tired.”
I smiled and told her I was fine. Just getting older.
But Betty knew me too well. She lowered her voice.
“Is it Michael?”
I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t want to admit it out loud. Didn’t want to say that my son had stopped seeing me as his mother and started seeing me as something else entirely.
“He’s going through a hard time,” I finally said.
Betty squeezed my hand.
“Just make sure you’re not going through one, too.”
I thought about her words all week, but when Friday came, I sent the money anyway, because the truth was I was terrified. Terrified that if I stopped, he’d stop calling altogether. Terrified that I’d lose him. That I’d become the kind of mother people forget about. The kind whose calls go unanswered and whose holidays are spent alone.
So I kept giving, kept sending, kept pretending everything was normal.
But deep down, I knew it wasn’t help anymore.
It was habit.
And habits don’t require gratitude. They just require repetition.
There’s a photograph on my mantle. It’s old now. The colors have faded to soft yellows and blues. In it, my husband, Robert, and I are standing in front of this very house. The same house I’m sitting in right now. We’re young, maybe thirty, and we’re smiling like we just won the lottery.
We hadn’t won anything. We’d just signed the mortgage papers.
Robert worked at the post office for thirty-two years. I worked part-time at the library and took care of Michael when he was small. We didn’t have much, but what we had, we built together. Every piece of furniture, every coat of paint, every memory pressed into these walls.
Robert used to say, “We don’t need to be rich. We just need to be steady.”
And we were steady. And strong. And committed to building a life that meant something.
When Michael was born, Robert cried. I’d never seen him cry before that. He held our son in his arms and whispered, “I’m going to teach you how to be a man.”
And he did. Or at least he tried.
I remember Michael at eight years old, standing in the driveway with Robert, learning how to change a tire. Robert didn’t just show him. He explained why it mattered.
“One day, someone you love might need help, and you’ll know what to do.”
Michael listened. He always listened back then.
On Sundays, Robert would take him to the hardware store. They’d walk the aisles together, talking about tools and projects and how to fix things instead of replacing them.
“Money doesn’t grow on trees,” Robert would say. “So we take care of what we have.”
I taught him other things. How to write thank-you notes. How to apologize when he was wrong. How to look people in the eye when he spoke to them. How to show up when he said he would.
When Michael was sixteen, he got his first job bagging groceries. He came home that first Friday with a check for $83, and he was so proud. Robert shook his hand like he was a grown man.
The next morning, Michael handed me a small bouquet of daisies. They were a little wilted, probably from the discount bin at the store, but they were the most beautiful flowers I’d ever seen.
“For you, Mom,” he’d said, “because you always take care of me.”
I kept one of those daisies pressed in my Bible. It’s still there.
Back then, I thought I’d done everything right. I thought the values we’d instilled in him would last forever. I thought love and respect were things you learned young and carried with you always.
But somewhere along the way, something changed.
Maybe it was when he went to college and met Clare. She came from a different kind of family. The kind that measured success by the size of your house and the brand of your car. The kind that believed image mattered more than integrity.
Or maybe it was when he got his first corporate job and started wearing ties and talking about quarterly earnings and networking events. He’d come home for holidays and seemed distracted, like our little house wasn’t enough anymore.
Robert noticed it, too.
One Christmas after Michael and Clare left early, Robert sat beside me on the couch and said quietly, “He’s forgetting where he came from.”
I defended Michael then.
“He’s just busy. He’s building his own life.”
But Robert shook his head.
“Building a life and forgetting your foundation are two different things.”
I didn’t want to believe him. I didn’t want to think that the little boy who brought me wilted daisies had grown into a man who saw his mother as a resource instead of a person.
But looking back now, I can see it clearly. The shift was slow, gradual, like watching a photograph fade in the sunlight. You don’t notice it happening until one day you look closely and realize the colors are gone.
After Robert died, I thought Michael would step up. I thought he’d remember everything his father taught him. I thought he’d be the man Robert raised him to be.
And for a while, he tried. He called more often. He helped me sort through Robert’s things. He held my hand at the funeral.
But then life got hard for him. And suddenly, I wasn’t his mother anymore.
I was his solution. His safety net. His Friday morning deposit.
The pension Robert left me was supposed to be my security. The savings we’d built together, penny by penny, year after year, were supposed to carry me through my final years with dignity.
Instead, they became Michael’s backup plan. Clare’s shopping fund. The reason they could go out to eat while I reheated leftovers.
I used to think about what Robert would say if he were still here. Would he be disappointed? Angry? Heartbroken?
Probably all three.
Because we’d taught Michael to value people over money. To show gratitude. To honor the sacrifices others made for him.
But somewhere along the way, he unlearned it all.
He once gave me flowers on payday.
Now he gives me deadlines.
The thing about giving is that once you start, people expect you to keep going. And the thing about expectations is that they grow quietly, like weeds in a garden you forgot to tend.
It started small enough.
“Mom, the landlord raised the rent. Could you help with the difference this month?” Two hundred dollars.
“Mom, the washing machine broke. We need a new one or we’ll have to go to the laundromat every week.” Four hundred.
“Mom, Clare’s car needs repairs. The mechanic says it’s not safe to drive.” Six hundred.
Each time, I told myself it was temporary. Each time, I believed them when they said it was the last time. Each time, I transferred the money before they even finished explaining why they needed it.
But temporary has a way of becoming permanent when no one’s paying attention.
Within a year, the $700 every Friday wasn’t enough anymore. There were always extras, always emergencies, always something that couldn’t wait.
I started keeping a list in my mind, not because I wanted to throw it back in their faces, but because I needed to remember. Needed to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.
January: heater repair.
February: dental work for Clare.
March: new tires and a battery.
April: spring break trip for the kids.
Wait. Spring break trip?
I remember pausing when Michael mentioned that one.
“A trip?” I asked.
“Just a little getaway,” he’d said quickly. “The kids have been so stressed with school. We thought it would be good for them.”
I wanted to ask how they could afford a vacation when they could barely afford groceries. I wanted to say that maybe they should save that money for actual emergencies.
But I didn’t, because saying no felt like slamming a door.
And I was terrified of what would happen if that door closed.
So I said yes. Again.
The worst part wasn’t the money itself. It was what I gave up to provide it.
I started missing my own doctor’s appointments. My knees had been bothering me for months, aching every time I stood up or climbed the stairs. My doctor wanted me to see a specialist, maybe get some physical therapy, but the co-pays were expensive, and if I spent money on myself, that meant less for Michael, less for the kids, less for keeping them afloat.
So I told myself I’d go next month. Then the month after. Then, eventually, I stopped scheduling appointments altogether. I just took some ibuprofen when the pain got bad and kept moving.
My blood pressure medication ran out and instead of refilling it right away, I waited. Stretched it. Skipped days. Because the pharmacy wasn’t cheap, and every dollar I spent on myself felt like a dollar I was stealing from them.
One Sunday after church, Betty invited me to lunch. Nothing fancy, just a little café downtown where they made good soup and fresh bread.
I almost said yes. I wanted to say yes. But then I thought about the twelve dollars it would cost, and I thought about Michael’s text from the night before, asking if I could help with the electric bill.
“Maybe next time,” I told Betty.
She looked at me for a long moment, not with pity— with concern.
“You’re allowed to live your own life, you know,” she said gently.
I smiled.
“I know.”
But I didn’t. Not really.
A few weeks later, Betty and two other friends from church came to visit me at home. They brought tea and cookies, and we sat in my living room talking about everything and nothing.
Then Betty said, “Sweetheart, we’re worried about you.”
I set my teacup down carefully.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” said Dorothy, the older of the three. She had that no-nonsense tone that only women in their eighties can pull off. “You look exhausted. You’ve lost weight. And you’re wearing the same coat you wore last winter.”
“It’s a perfectly good coat,” I said quietly.
“That’s not the point,” Betty said. “The point is that you’re giving everything away and leaving nothing for yourself.”
I felt my throat tighten.
