I believe in forgiveness. Just not for everyone. I am not saying that you give someone one chance and if they mess that’s the end. I am talking about the people who are given chance after chance and still they betray you. My mother is one of the few people that I can no longer forgive. She has done too much in the past for me to forgive her.

My mother is an alcoholic who was very good at hiding it from the outside world. Only a handful of people knew about it before it came out. Those who did know about it refused to believe it. They refused to believe that it was happening. They refused to see the fact that there was only beer and week old food in our fridge. They refused to see that I was raising my two younger brothers. They also refused to acknowledge the fact that it’s unnatural for a teenage girl to have broken bones all the time.

Eventually a friend at school noticed. The events that unfolded afterwards led to me never returning to my mother’s custody. She lost me and did not change her ways. Her fiance had a major stroke and she still did not change. She lost her two young sons and still did not change. So I went toe-to-toe with her and sectioned her. Meaning that I went to court and poured my heart out to a judge to explain why this needed to happen. She was sent to rehab and still she did not change.

My mother has had so many chances to change, to get better, to get help and she hasn’t. She let her entire family slip away and even her fiance left her because he realized that he needed to be around people who could help him reclaim his life. My mother was not ready to change and is still not ready to change. I do not think she will ever be ready for that change.

I could have forgiven my mother the first time, the second time, maybe even the third time. But we are now six or seven tries deep and she still will not try. She still does not want her children back. Instead she wants her beer. So although I believe in forgiveness, I do not believe she deserves it.