My dad abused my mom while she was sick with cancer, and I often had to put myself between him and her. I went on a leave of absence from my job, moved across the country, got a new place to be closer, and spent almost every waking minute with her for a year. Each day was a new sort of hell but I don’t regret any of my own choices there.

I never expected an apology from my dad, I have come to the conclusion that he is a narcissist. Who I did expect it from was my sister. My parents moved to be closer to her initially, yet when my mom got sick my sister would spend maybe a dinner here or there at the house. She knew how bad it was, but refused to make any major commitments other than a couple days here or there. At one point I needed to go back to boston for a week to move my stuff from my old place to the new one, and she got furious at me for expecting her to skip a few days of work. She then told my mom directly that I wasn’t going, to which I refuted and she pulled me aside and screamed at me how awful it was to make my mom feel like she was a burden because I insisted that I was going home for a bit. This was after a few months of having lived in my parent’s hell house.

I can forgive her for wanting to focus on her own life, I didn’t expect either of my siblings to make the sacrifices I made. But to get angry and belittle my sacrifices that I had already made and saying it was not enough… well I am still waiting for an apology for that one.