Catherine Spieß

 I actually wrote & sent her this letter to help me move forward.

I am writing this letter 17 years later to get my feelings finally out. It is definitely not easy for me to acknowledge these feelings again, but I really want to be happy about the fact that I was at least pregnant once in my life. That I have only one child and she is in heaven. That I am childless not by choice, but I want to value and acknowledge the parts of my journey.

In order to be able to cherish my past,  give honour to my Lily and try to move forward,  I want to say the following:

• Every time I seemed to have seen you, you greeted me with such depressing words. “Alles Schiesse” means “everything is so shitty” in German. It seemed to be your favourite thing to express. It was definitely not a delight to hear this constantly. You obviously did not enjoy life; perhaps you still do not. You witnessed over the years how you sadly took it out on other people and surely tried to bring them down too. I constantly tried to be nice to you despite you also treating me badly. It was just terrible having to listen to you talk bad about so many people. Even your own family.

• I still remember you telling me that you were convinced that your son, my husband at the time, was homosexual. After you told me that, I told him you said that to me.. he was so disappointed, angry ... all sorts of emotions. What kind of mother says such things when her son was actually happily married? I have nothing against someone that is homosexual, but why did you feel the need to say it to me, his wife? – to hurt me?

• I did not want to live in one of your houses. I did not want to pay you. I am a proud person that has achieved so much on my own. I lived in that house solely because it was somehow important to your son / my husband at that time. While living there, not a month went by without some type of disagreement between you and your son. You tried so often to make things miserable for us. Why? What kind of person finds joy in trying to make other people’s lives miserable? I remember actually pitying you at times.

• Your son and I actually took you to Canada with us that was meant to be special. You managed to sadly ruin this with your greedy ways and horrible words. You told my Baba that it is good that I did not have children. What person says such a thing? My Grandmother/Baba.. definitely lost all respect for you because of this? No decent person would say such hurtful words.

• When I would cook German food, you would somehow come a few days later with the same food. This is not normal. What was your point in doing this?

• I became more and more convinced that you were a big part of the reason your son and I got divorced. Maybe you gave him an ultimatum.

• Mother-in-Law, you are sadly a, hurtful and bitter person. I loved and still do love my father-in-law / your ex-husband, who you so aggressively despised, and tried to convince me to despise too.

Mother-in-Law, I do not have the authority to judge what will happen to you, but I can at least say that the only real good part of not being together anymore with your son was to get away from you. This is actually really sad, because it actually never had to be that way. I could have perhaps had a happy family with him or at least a happy life together.

Despite everything, I was, am and will always continue to strive to be a good, honest person – so that is why, with this letter .. I forgive you.

This is my story that you helped write. The next page of this life story is a page without you, pages that will continue to multiply with ups and downs, but pages that will hopefully be filled with less hurt, more exciting opportunities, gratitude and special memories.