My Maternal, Parental Unit is Dying...

...and quite frankly, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

For so many years, I craved some of the attention she lavished upon "First-born Male Child", to no avail. No matter what I did, it was never good enough.
It was painful.

As I got older, long after my father died, I began to "see" MPU" as a person I didn't really like, and one that definitely was not an appropriate role model for a young lady.
She worked as a private secretary for a major airline, and took full advantage of a plethoria of "pilot types", mostly married, to my chagrin.
This was painful, as I knew it was soooooooo wrong, but it bothered (seemingly), her not.

"FMC" didn't seem to mind. He so loved his "mommie". They spent many hours communing in her bedroom, having convos that I was never privy to.

As I grew older, I noticed other nuances of her personality that I found, well...repulsive; most apparent was how greedy, and money-hungry she was! In the last few years, I've watched her lie, manipulate, and screw her own sister, over an inheritance. Frightening.

Interesting enough, after I married a very wealthy man, my appeal to "MPU" CHANGED. Wow. Suprised?
The day she saw my engagement ring, she had the audacity to say, "Oh wow! That's so pretty! Can I wear it? You can wear my old one."
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat????

Nevertheless, I reveled in my new-found popularity with the woman that had given birth to me 30 some-odd years previous.
Pitiful, huh?
I lavished her with baubles, manicures, lunches, dinners, trips and other goodies, with no complaint, and wanting nothing in return, but her love.
Peoples, ya can't buy love.

Within a few years, she and I had two major fallings-out that led to our eventual, three year estrangement, and both were over something that I have a very emphatic, and non-changing attitude about; infidelity.

The first envolved my bro's "fling" with his office manager, the fact that the gossip had spread all over the small town in Fla. where they reside, and the fact that despite having admitted to it to many, including myself, he continued to admonish his bride that it was, "all in your head! There's nothing going on!"
I "sided" with sis-in-law, and I thought the "MPU" would explode in her indignation.
"How dare you! That is your BROTHER! Blood is thicker than water!" Blah, blah, blah.
There is much more to this story but suffice it to say, I held firm.
"If it looks like a snake, sounds like a snake, it's a snake."

The second altercation surrounded my own (second) husband's infidelity.
According to the "MPU", regardless of the fact that I came home to find the maid atop him, in OUR bed, I should have, OVER-LOOKED it!
The exact, same idiocy spewed forth from the "MPU": "You married a very wealthy man. THINK of all of the "things" he can give you! Look at the HOME you live in! Men DO THAT! Look the other way!"
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat????

I moved. She chose not to speak to me for the last three years. She also "inflicted" this punishment opon my two children.
Nice, huh?

Soooooooooo, yesterday I get a phone call from "bro", informing me that "MPU" has in-operable uterus cancer, and that it would be "nice" of me to call, and to, "prepare to travel within 24 hours".
I was also berated, most horrifically, by the "FMC", for "not being a grown-up, burying the hatchet ,and checking on your mother!"
Um....'scuse me? Doesn't that work BOTH ways? Now, I'm to made to feel GUILTY because she has a terminal illness?!

I'm just rambling here, folks. There were so many other things that have occured between the "MPU" and myself....
But...honestly, my first reaction was one of sadness. I cried.
Regardless of how she treated me, she gave birth to me.
Aside from that, I'm in a mental "Twilight Zone".
I dunno how, what, I'm supposed to feel.
I dunno what course of action I should take.
I dunno how I would react to a woman that, thru advanced notice, I will no longer recognize.
I don't even know how I will be perceived, or IF I should even go...

I'm agonizing, as I have in the past, over, "Honor thy Mother and Father".
How does one "honor" one that has repetitively treated her own child as an "out-cast" for no apparent reason?
Will I be deemed "sinful" because I rallied against HER sinful behaviors?
Will I be cursed to damnation because I don't "honor" my "mother"?

I think I'm willing to offer "forgiveness" for what she has done to me, but I know not, if that is what I should offer, or if she will perceive it as something that should be offered.
I just...
Don't know.

I find some irony in the fact that this is occuring over Easter weekend.

At any rate, if I disappear, you'll know why.