I was never good enough for the female who birthed me. There was literally nothing I was praised for, and everything I was criticised for. Leaving home at 18 was one of my best moves.

I met my gf, we got engaged (more crit), we visited the then parental home (separate rooms!!) and she made it plain she did not like my gf.

We got married.

She visited twice. She criticised our little kids. She made plain her disdain for everything about all of us.

One day she phoned and I’d had enough. I told her that she has never once sent my wife a birthday card, or our kids, or any anniversary / xmas cards and all she ever did was bitch at me and belittle me.

I told her that unless she had something decent to say that she should never contact me again and I put the phone down. This would be ~2003.

She did not call. I did not miss her. All was good.

Time passes.

Years later my Dad phones. By this time they had divorced, living apart, each in / had a different relationship.

“Your mum is in a hospice, she’s dying. Do you want to see her?”

“Why would I want to do that?” I replied.

Dad said something, I forget what and the call ended soon after.

Couple of days later he calls again.

“She doesn’t want to see you either”

“Even if she did I would not” was my reply

Couple of days later he calls again.

“Your mother died a short time ago”

“Okay”

The world became a nicer place now she’s dead.

I later find out she had written me out of her will. What I could have got was given instead to my two siblings. Two people I never talk to. I don’t care about the no contact, I don’t care about the will.

Times passes.

If you had asked me 4 hours ago what year she died I had no idea. Her death was a non-event, a nothing. I didn’t hate her as that gives emotion. I felt nothing. Zero. So why would I recall the year she died?

Then my Dad died a few months ago.

He had, on three occasions, while chatting on the phone, said he thought the cutting out of the will was wrong and that he would be leaving me some money. Each time I told him that he needed to take care of his wife - who is lovely - and that the will didn’t matter. He insisted and he knew, being over 80 and increasingly infirm, that his time was coming.

Given the female’s will, and that I distrust my still-not-speaking siblings, I have been checking the Gov online probate records. While the female’s estate might have been small, Dad’s has to have been close, with property included, to £1M so I expect it to show up. So far it has not.

Then I got to pondering. What about the female?

Probate showed nothing. Married surname, nothing. Affair partner’s surname, nothing. Birth surname, nothing.

Ancestry sites want money, promise nothing, so I plonked her Birth name into DDG and bingo!

A site listed her correct name, correct DOB and a cause of death which fitted perfectly.

Very funny, actually funny, that the female who was all in to fit this, fit that, faddy stuff was killed by cancer. (That might not amuse you, but you didn’t know her.)

But the VERY funny was that her death was listed on a Cancer donate page which had been created by the female sibling of mine.

The amount donated?

£ZERO.

No-one gave a shit, and that’s just as it should be.

2012 was a good year.