Could You Forgive?

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There was a seventy-five year old lady living in my building. She and I had become pretty good friends and she told me a lot about her past. She told me that she had been married and pregnant with a child, but the child died during delivery, when she had a seizure and the doctors tied her tubes, because they said with her condition it would be unwise to try to have any more children. Mothers day came and I gave her a card. Feeling sorry for the fact that she had lost the only child she'd ever be able to have, I wanted to honor her. A few months later, I got the strangest call. There was this lady calling and claiming to be the daughter of my seventy-five year old friend. I assume that she had tried to look her up and my name came up, since we lived in the same building and I have always been listed. Anyway, this lady was telling me all kinds of information about her mother, that I knew to be true and some things, obviously, that I had neverr heard before. I thought that she was either crazy or trying to get to me friend to scam her out of any money that she might have. I told her that she had no children and never to call me again. She didn't call for a while, but pretty soon, she started calling on a regular basis trying to convince me that this was in fact her mother. Finally, I went to my friend and ask her if she had any children and she told me the same story about the baby dying and the doctors advice. So the next time this lady called, I was more than a little rude to her. Then she told me that she was going to call the police to come over and make sure her mother was not being abused. I did not know what to make of it. That evening, the police showed up and questioned her and she admitted that she had three children from a previous marriage and that the husband was now dead. Come to find out, the husband had never died and she had remarried while still married to him. I was so shocked, I just could not believe that this lady had completely denied her entire family. When the lady called the next day, I apologized and let her talk to her mother for the first time. It was such a weird situation. Then the daughter e-mailed pictures to me of the entire family. This lady had eight grand children that she didn't even know about. Since they lived in another state, they could not visit right away, but they made plans and came out to visit right away. At first, they were happy to meet their mom for the first time, but soon the resentment set in and they started pulling away from her, after going back home. However, the mother was as happy as can be. All of a sudden she was telling everyone about her children and how they were planning to come out and get her and take her back to live with them. They never came back to get her and they e-mailed me and told me that there was just too much pain that they needed to work through with her and their families, before they could accept her into their lives. Soon after that the lady fell and was put into a convelesant home and I moved to another city, so we lost touch.