My Aunt Alienated Herself From Our Family For 13 Years, And Passed Away Today.. Alone

A story about holding painful grudges, and why it's never worth it

Auntie Debbie way before things got bad…

I’m sure you can think of someone who has wronged you before over the years. It might be a family member, friend, coworker, or boss.

I’m also sure you felt some strong emotions during that time and maybe even:

• Resented the person

• Said some things you regret

• Or even stopped talking to them entirely.

It’s very common in life to run into problems with people we know and whether or not we’re well versed in it, we are all forced to deal with conflict at some point or another.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t feel emotions when these things happen to you.

I’m also not saying it’s wrong to decide to stop hanging out or talking with people for whatever reason makes sense to you.

However… I am recommending to exercise great caution in holding hate in your heart for someone who has wronged you. To wish bad things on them, gossip negatively about them, and spend your daily energy focusing on them from a negative place.

Over the years, I’ve seen all sorts of people hold grudges and resentment for years. Some people completely cut others out of their lives, but never truly stop focusing on them.

And herein lies the problem..

Their mind keeps the memory fresh by continuously playing it over and over again in their head, reminding them of why they don’t talk to that person anymore, or why that person is an asshole, and further justifications for why they should and can hate them as much as they do.

Science has shown us that the mind does not know the difference between an imaginary thought and an actual life experience. It believes both of them. So when you choose to “think” about an experience over and over again, what you’re essentially doing is reliving that experience each time.

The question here to ask is: What does a person gain from doing all of that?

Sure, if you decide to stop associating with a person you may gain a newfound peace that didn’t exist before. You may also allow yourself to heal and move on from a toxic relationship that didn’t serve you

Those are all good things

But what good comes from: hating them, talking poorly about them, wishing them harm or failure, and trying to get others to join you on boycotting their existence?

The answer in my opinion, is absolutely nothing except self-harm which will continuously be inflicted on the person who decides to engage in this behavior

I've seen my share of family drama over the years, but there's one story that sticks out above the rest.

My cousin graduated from high school 10 years ago and decided to have a graduation party at his parent's house

Our whole family was invited, and naturally everyone wanted to contribute by bringing a food dish to the party

My grandmother (Gram) was notoriously known in our family for making the best chocolate chip cookies.

In fact, every single family event that I can remember, she would make these cookies and bring them in a large tin.

People went nuts over them. So nuts in fact, that there were rarely ever any left over. She vowed to never give away the recipe.

Naturally, Gram showed up to my cousin's graduation with a tin of cookies, set them on the table outside with all the other refreshments, and then proceeded to sit outside and mingle with the family.

Shortly after, Gram's daughter Debbie, (my aunt) arrived with a plastic container covered with tin foil.

As she approached the refreshment table, she noticed the famous cookie tin and even saw that some of us were already digging into them

Without even saying hello, Debbie took one look at Gram, still holding her container between both hands and said:

"What the hell's wrong with you? Why'd you bring chocolate chip cookies? That's what I made!"

"What are you talking about?" Gram replied "I always bring chocolate chip cookies, you know that. I've been doing it for over 40 years"

Debbie got louder. "Why do you always have to do this!? I’m sick of it!"

"I don't know what your problem is, I always make these and I always bring them. Why don't you put your cookies on the table. We can have two tins."

"No. I’m done. You're dead to me!” Debbie shouted as she turned around and stormed out, taking her cookies with her as she left the party

These were the last words she ever spoke to her mother.

Debbie truly never spoke to Gram after that day and it honestly broke Gram’s heart.

Gram tried reaching out to her, but Debbie never responded. She also never showed up at another family event

Gram sent holiday and birthday cards to her daughter each year after that, but never received one back.

I remember talking to Gram on the phone about it a few times and she would always tell me " I don't know what happened to my daughter. We always gave her whatever she wanted".

Perhaps that was part of the problem…

Over the years, Gram did some reflecting and realized that there was nothing she could do to change things.

A few years later, I remember the topic came up again while we were on the phone, only this time, Gram had a change of heart.

"I love my daughter. I'll always love my daughter and I forgive her for anything and everything that she did. I've made peace with that fact, and it does make me a little sad when I think about it, but I've realized there's nothing I can do but forgive her and move on. She knows I love her because I've told her in many cards these past few years.”

5 years later… (2019)

Gram lived until she was 89. She was 60 something in this photo

Gram was in the hospital after a bad fall, and the whole family knew she was nearing her last few days. My dad reached out to Debbie to inform her on what was going on, even though she had completely alienated herself from the family for the last 5 years.

Debbie texted back “thank you”, and never visited. Shortly after that Gram passed away and my father sent Debbie another text message about the funeral arrangements.

Debbie responded: “Thank you for letting me know, I will not be attending”

Years went by and we never heard from Debbie. Her argument with her mother had caused her to disconnect herself from our entire family

I can only imagine the level of pain she must have felt by deciding not to go to her own mother’s funeral.

3 years after that… (2022)

Debbie's only sister Leslie passed away suddenly which was a complete shock. By this point, it had been 8 years since Debbie had seen anyone in our family.

She didn't show up to that funeral either.

Debbie Resurfaces.. kind of (2023)

In 2023, my cousin Tony decided to drop by her house and risk a visit. He always had a smile on his face and could make anyone laugh. I don't know one person who ever disliked Tony.

Tony and his wife Melanie

Tony showed up at the front door and what he saw absolutely horrified him.

As he was invited into Debbie’s place, he noticed that she still had her nightgown on at 3pm, and that her once dyed black hair was now a snowy white.

Her home was stacked to the ceiling with junk that filled up the entire house, leaving a narrow pathway to walk through but that was it.

She had become a hoarder, confined herself to her own home, and was absolutely miserable.

All this was caused over a tin of cookies, and the unwillingness to have a conversation and come to forgiveness.

In December 2024, just a few days before New Years Eve, Debbie passed away… Alone..

No one in our family even knew that she was sick, or dying for that matter

Her husband Ed sent my dad a text message after she passed to let him know.

After I had received the news, I did a lot of reflecting on how things turned out.

My Take

Was it worth it for her to cut off her own mother and alienate herself from the entire family over a batch of cookies?

Surely that wasn’t the whole reason but it was the final straw.

But what good did that choice do for anyone?

All I can see is the suffering it caused everyone, especially Debbie herself who definitely got the bulk of it.

You see, Gram was hurt initially, but managed to get over it, forgive her daughter, and live peacefully until she passed

The rest of the family got over things even quicker

What can we all learn from this experience?

You deserve to let go of grudges. Here's why

Everyone has drama in their family

Most of this drama consists of both sides only caring about themselves and their own needs.

The conflict is fueled because each side is unwilling to see the world through the lens of the other person

Translation: There's usually a lack of empathy on both sides

This extreme level of selfishness, which exists in most people, destroys connections and contributes largely to grudges being held.

The most dangerous thing about holding a grudge?

It only causes pain to the person who is holding it

Therefore, if you are the one holding a grudge against someone else, you're only causing harm to yourself

Why hold a grudge in the first place?

In my opinion, I believe most people resort to holding grudges as a final call for attention that they feel they have been hurt or wronged in some way. Even though it seems that we don’t want attention because we are alienating ourselves from a person or group of people, attention is actually exactly what we are craving with this behavior.

In a perfect fairytale, most of us don’t even know what would make the situation better, but we do envision the other person apologizing profusely, to the point where our mind believes that our feelings have been validated, our actions were understood, and there is little or no chance that the other person will repeat the same behavior moving forward.

Holding grudges is an adult temper tantrum. We learn it from childhood when we get hurt and feel like we can’t communicate effectively on what is going on inside us.

So… We withdraw ourselves, and refuse to communicate because we fear being hurt even more, or made fun of for feeling this way in the first place.

This is especially hard for the older generations because communicating your feelings in the family unit up until fairly recently was discouraged and even frowned upon. Parents considered it a weakness if you couldn’t handle your emotions on your own and solve those problems.

But the million dollar questions still remain..

• How are we supposed to know how to manage and control our emotions if we’ve never been permitted to express them in the first place?

• Are we just expected to know how to manage ourselves and our emotions with no exposure or experience?

• Do our parents know how to do this? The very people who expect us to just “figure it out”?

A closer look will reveal that most people have no idea how to manage their emotions and in fact, the reason why they don’t “want to talk about things like this” is because they actually cannot even handle the subject. So they avoid it and then pretend that everything is just “fine”.

The fact is:

If we’re never taught how to manage our emotions and also, never given to opportunity to try to learn to communicate how we feel, how are we ever going to get good at it?

Is anyone ever good at anything the first time they try it? Rarely…

So what we’re witnessing is a huge hole within the family unit. The majority of families just expect everyone to be able to manage their emotions and feelings without learning the first thing about communication or what it means to be human.

These same people often resort to self medicating tactics like Alcohol, Marijuana, and prescription drugs to create the illusion that they have everything under control.

They then condemn you for not being able to do what they themselves cannot do.

So what’s the takeaway…?

Families, Schools, and society may not think it’s important to learn how to manage emotions and communicate effectively in relationships.. But the evidence of our current day society shows me something completely different.

The increased levels of suicide, medication use, and anxiety/depression diagnoses tell me that this is a far more critical issue than most people realize. And it certainly isn't something that we automatically know how to handle. If it were, we wouldn't be seeing this type of desperation spreading across our society.

I wish I could just give you the solution here in one sentence but the truth is I can’t.. The real solution lies in each person realizing they need to learn how to manage emotions and communicate effectively, just like everyone learns how to drive a car, hold a pencil, and do basic mathematics.

Society isn’t going to pressure you to do this, it’s up to you to take a look at the current world we’re living in and realize it for yourself. This article can help you do that but it can’t do the work for you.

What I can tell you is:

Grudges do not end when the other person concedes and apologizes.

They end when the person holding them decides to forgive what happened entirely, and agrees to move on from the bad feelings that started everything in the first place. We are the only one’s who can decide to stop feeling a certain way.

You may have trouble doing this because you may feel that the other person doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. You may think it gives them a free pass to show the same behavior again down the road.

But what about you? What about your piece of mind? What about the pain that you’re causing yourself on the day to day just thinking and focusing on it?

Don’t you believe that you deserve piece of mind?

You can forgive the situation as a whole and still decide to set boundaries with that person moving forward in any way that you wish. This will do a great deal to prevent the recurring behavior.

The important thing is that you were willing to clear your own slate and move on because you DESERVE to have that peace.

Realizing that everyone is really doing the best they can is a great way to start being able to forgive others who have made mistakes around you

The key is in realizing that you are the only one who holds the key to freeing yourself from these emotions.

I hope these points and story were helpful in forming some new, curious thoughts in our mind. This is exactly how change starts.

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