When you give your children a choice, and they choose kindness – only to have cruelty meet them at the door.

This morning, I stood at a painful crossroads. It was my mother’s birthday—a woman who has caused me years of pain, manipulation, and deep emotional wounds. A woman who has, despite everything, managed to live on with strength seemingly drawn not from grace or goodness, but from control and narcissism.

And today, I gave my children a choice. I sat with them and explained the truth: that they were not required to wish her a happy birthday, that they were free to do whatever they felt in their hearts.

Some of them chose to call her—soft-hearted, young, and innocent—“just in case it’s her last birthday,” they said.

They were being bigger than the pain. They were doing what they thought was kind.

And so we called.

And called.

And called again.

Only to discover the truth: my mother has blocked me. Her phone wouldn’t ring. Her number refused our calls. The hopeful little faces beside me slowly turned to confusion, then sadness.

She blocked me—and by doing so, she blocked her own grandchildren too.

Not even for her birthday would she allow us the dignity of reaching out. Not even for the sake of the children.

And I realised, in that moment, how deep her cruelty runs.

This wasn’t just rejection—it was deliberate. Strategic. Her own warped version of punishment. A final insult wrapped up in silence.

I watched my children try to make sense of it. I watched them hurt, quietly. And I ached, not just for them, but for the part of me that still, after everything, hoped for decency. Hoped for something better.

But this is the lesson.

This is the truth.

You cannot force love where love has never lived.

And no matter how good you are, how pure your heart, how brave your children…

You cannot squeeze water from a stone.

And you cannot heal through hope alone.

Today, my children saw what I’ve spent a lifetime surviving.

Today, I stop feeling guilty for the boundaries I set.

And today, I hold my head high, knowing that even if the door was slammed in our faces, we tried. We tried with grace.

We tried with love.

And she chose silence.

That’s not our failure.

That’s her legacy.

⸻