This is not a reply to the post it's linked to. Beta wouldn't let me reply to the actual one.
No, the envelope didn't start out empty. My mother was mad, and an out of control hysteric, and depressed, and paranoid and violent, but she wasn't evil. This is my opinion; because if she couldn't help all the strange things she did, it doesn't seem right to call her evil. She had had a horrible childhood, and did much better by us than was done by her.
Also, that would have been a lie, pretending to put the dollar in the envelope. Oddly enough, although I can tell you many utterly awful things she said, I couldn't tell you a single intentional lie she told us. Of course her perception was often weird, so the relation of her 'truth' to reality wasn't always above criticism; but that's not the same as a lie.
When my mother was in her fifties, she did some nice thing for her mother, and Grandma said to her, "You're not such a bad daughter!" Mama said, "That is the first compliment you have ever given me." |
