Kept in a box

I met my birth mother (Sally) 20 years ago. She hadn't wanted to be found, but eventually agreed to talk to me, and we met and spent a wonderful day together. I returned home - 2000 miles away, and we kept in touch by phone. However, I could only phone on certain nights when her husband would not be home. She also didn't want me to meet her mother, who was 91 year old at the time. I began to feel like I she was keeping me in a little box that she could take out and look at now and then. I discussed this situation with my Triad support group and therapist, and the consensus was that there was no reason I shouldn't contact my birth grandmother on my own. I walked in on her unannounced. She looked at me and said, "I don't know you, but you look familiar. Who are you?" I replied that I was her eldest granddaughter. "Whose are you?" she asked. "Sally's," I replied. It was one of the happiest moments of my life when she exclaimed, "Now I can die happy." While Sally did her best to repress any memory of me, my grandmother had wondered about me and prayed for me for 40 years. Unfortunately, Sally found out that I had met her mother. Her last words to me - 20 years ago - were: "I never wanted to have anything to do with you." At first I was hurt and in a state of shock, the kind when all emotion shuts down. Later I was just angry. It took me 10 years to get past that anger, and then I decided to make contact with my half-sisters. I developed a relationship with two of them; the third wanted nothing to do with me. Things were fine for about 4 years. But then Sally learned that my sisters had been seeing me and gave them an ultimatum. One of them called me to say that they no longer could have any contact with me. My birth mother turned out to be a selfish woman who cares only about herself and doesn't mind making those around her miserable.