I was ten when my mother decided I was a burden. She had a new family and I didn’t fit the picture. So she got rid of me and gave me away like I was nothing to raise her “perfect son.” My grandma took me in and loved me. Years later, the woman who abandoned me showed up at my door… begging.

There’s a moment when you realize some wounds never heal. For me, that moment came at 32 as I stood at my grandmother’s grave. The only person who had ever truly loved me was gone, and the woman who gave birth to me and abandoned me stood across the cemetery, not even looking in my direction.

I hadn’t seen my mother in years. Not since she decided my brother was worth raising… but I wasn’t.

The rain fell in sheets that day, soaking through my black dress as I watched them lower Grandma Brooke’s casket into the ground. My mother, Pamela, stood under an umbrella with her perfect family — her husband Charlie and their son Jason… my replacement and the “golden” child worthy of her love.

When it was over, she turned and walked away without a word to me, just like she had 22 years ago when I was ten. I remained rooted to the spot, alone with the fresh mound of dirt that covered the only parent I’d ever really had.

“I don’t know how to do this without you, Grandma,” I whispered to the grave.

I was born from a brief affair and I was an inconvenience my mother never wanted. When I was ten, she married my stepfather Charlie and gave birth to their “perfect son” Jason. Suddenly, I became nothing more than a reminder of her past mistake.

I still remember the day she told me I wouldn’t be living with them anymore. “Rebecca, come here,” she called from the kitchen table where she sat with Grandma Brooke. I walked in, hope blooming in my chest. “Yes, Mom?” I asked. She rarely spoke directly to me anymore. Her eyes were cold and distant. “You’re going to live with Grandma now.” The words didn’t make sense at first. “Like… for the weekend?”