Ms. Honeydripper was very happy living with her daughter, but her daughter was miserable. You see, every day her mother made her life as miserable as she could possibly do all in passive aggressive actions. Things no one could prove she did and that she could deny repeatedly. Ms. Honeydripper told lies to cover herself, and she told them frequently.

Her poor daughter did everything she could to make her Mother's life comfortable and saw to it each month that she had everything she needed or wanted, while she went without things that she herself needed. Try as hard as she could, she never was able to save any money. It took both their retirement checks just to make it from one month to the next.

It had been a total sacrifice on her daughter's part from the beginning of her life. Ms. Honeydripper had not had the girl until she was in her mid-thirties. At age forty-six, Mr. Honeydripper had died suddenly of a massive heart attack. He put them both through massive trauma because he was an alcoholic. Many times he would get drunk and chase them with a butcher knife with them having to run and hide from him just to stay alive. Toward the end, he even began to be totally delusional and would see things in his mind that were not really there or true. Once he hit Ms. Honeydripper in her nose. She told people that she ran into a door. She always covered for him. He slept in another bedroom because he urinated on his bed frequently when he was drinking. He would fall asleep at the table sometimes. She would clean the food off his face and place a pillow under his head. She knew if she woke him up, they would both have to run and hide from him. She was afraid to let her small daughter sleep alone for fear that her husband might kill her while she slept, so she would put her in her bedroom with her each night.

She locked her bedroom door in hopes they would be safe. One night Mr. Honeydripper came bursting into the bedroom with a huge knife in his hand. He began ranting and raving at Ms. Honeydripper. The daughter was scared of her daddy. She begged her mother for them to get up and run from him. This time Ms. Honeydripper had had enough of him. She simply tossed her covers back and said to him, "Here I am. Go ahead and kill me if that is what you want to do." Mr. Honeydripper was shocked back into reality. Tears filled his eyes, and he turned and walked away. He began to realize that he would end up killing them if Fate did not intervene.

Mr. Honeydripper always felt that he was the black sheep in his own family. He had come from a large family of nine children. His parents had never gotten along, and finally ended up separating. Divorces were not common for poor people back in those days. She said he was crazy. He said she was crazy.

When he had married his wife, he thought he was the luckiest man alive. She didn't want him to drink but he couldn't seem to stop. He hated being so weak-willed. His brothers and sisters ignored him completely. He could only find menial jobs and he kept losing them because he was drunk so often. She was his Enabler though, and was constantly making excuses for his behavior to cover up the fact that he was an alcoholic. In those days it was seen as a character weakness instead of a disease. He wanted to quit drinking but it was too strong an addiction for him. Before they had chosen separate bedrooms, she gave him a choice of her or the booze. He chose the booze. So that ended their lovelife.

Ms. Honeydripper went to church regularly. Everyone in her community loved and respected her but no one ever offered to help them. It was left up to her to get a job to keep a roof over their heads and the utilities paid and food on the table. If Mr. Honeydripper didn't come straight home on payday, she never even saw his paycheck. He would blow it all on booze. They never knew when he would be drinking or sober. It was a constant walking on eggshells when he was around. They didn't want to say something that would trigger another outburst of the monster who lived inside him and could come out in a heartbeat.

When he died suddenly while walking home from work one day, he had stopped at one of his friends who was a bootlegger telling them he needed to lay down for a few minutes as he was very sick. He never made it any further than the bed when the massive heart attack hit him and he was gone. The bootlegger was scared the police would think he had something to do with his death, so he planned to dump his body after dark. Ms. Honeydripper and her daughter had walked right past this house when they were going to catch the bus to town to pay their bills. They even walked back past it upon their return home. Ms. Honeydripper commented on how the lunch she had left on the table for her husband had not been touched.

She sent her young daughter next door to play, and busied herself cleaning the house. About mid-afternoon a neighbor came telling her that her husband was sick and needed her to come get him. She asked her if she would take her to get him since they didn't have a car. The neighbor said she would be glad to. She already knew he was dead. Someone else visiting had gone into the bedroom and found Mr. Honeydripper so the man had no choice but to call the police.

Ms. Honeydripper knew her husband would probably be drunk since he was at a bootlegger's house. She got her daughter and they went quickly to the man's house. They parked at the store across the street. There were police cars everywhere. Ms. Honeydripper saw the man coming out of his house and she walked across the street to meet him halfway. She said they tell me my husband is sick in your house. He said, no, I am afraid he is dead. She said, no he can't be dead. She went into shock. The five year old girl didn't cry. She knew she had to be strong for her Mother's sake.

She had loved her daddy just the same as her Mother had. But even at her young age, she knew it was for the best. Everyone who knew how he treated them knew it was for the best that he died that day because they knew he would have ended up killing them both if he hadn't died.

They had it easier for awhile after Mr. Honeydripper died. They moved to a nicer place to live, even though it was a housing project. They both drew survivor's checks, and Ms. Honeydripper didn't have to work for the first time in her life. She was able to stay at home and be with her little girl.

The little girl made a few new friends. Their house was clean and did not smell of urine like it had previously because of her dad's bedroom. She started school and was very intelligent. But still she was an adult child. She always worried so much about her Mother. Her Mother controlled her by telling her if she didn't mind her, that God might take her away from her like He did her daddy. The child feared her Mother but she was all she had left, and did not want to be left alone. Ms. Honeydripper said she minded her so good out of love. The child knew it was fear though.

Even as a child she rushed home each day to make sure her Mother was all right. If someone gave her a piece of candy, she would save it until she got home to share with her Mother. In her eyes, her Mother was perfect. She could do no wrong. She kept her Mother's house very clean while she worked. If she didn't, Ms. Honeydripper would begin cursing and telling her not to be lazy when she came home from school. So she had dinner started and the house cleaned because she always did whatever her Mother told her to do.

Then her Mother met a new man and things changed for them both again. This new man had several children of his own. They were mean to the young girl and teased her and tormented her constantly after they got married. Whatever she saw in that man, she couldn't figure out because they were nothing alike. She lost her check when she remarried, so she had to go back to work again. She left the girl with the man's children who tormented her constantly. They made her life as miserable as they could every day. She told her Mother but there was nothing she could do about it either. They began calling her bad names as well. The man could not control his own children.

He was a total loser. He only worked at odd jobs, and thought he was doing something if he brought home a few dollars in groceries each week for the whole bunch of them. Ms. Honeydripper was still the backbone who kept the family a place to live.

Finally she couldn't take it any longer and they divorced. She and her daughter were alone again. But she still had to work to keep them afloat. She gave up on men though. She dedicated her life to raising her little girl, and hoped that someday she would return the favor to her.

And that was exactly what the girl did when she grew up and married. She took Ms. Honeydripper into her own home, and promised her she would never put her into a nursing home as long as she lived but would take care of her.

She no longer saw her Mother as perfect though. She realized now she was very controlling and manipulative and did things every day to make her life miserable. She and her husband ended up divorcing as well. She kept on taking care of her Mother all the while. It was to be a lifelong task for her.

Even before her Mother was elderly, she realized that she would just not cooperate with her. She would say she took a bath, but her body odor would be so horrible she knew she was lying to her. That was all she asked her Mother to do each day was to take a bath so she did not have a body odor. Ms. Honeydripper always said she loved taking a bath so much, and how nice it was to be clean, but she was lying. She hated bathing and water for some reason. She would even stick her hands in the commode after she used it, laughing to herself, thinking of all the things she could touch to dirty up all the cleanness of her daughter's home. And touch everything she would as soon as she could. Her daughter was constantly having to clean things where she would get feces on them. It was making her daughter get more and more depressed.

She loved her Mother very much, but why would she not cooperate with her, and constantly made her life as miserable as she could? It made no sense at all to her. And no one ever believed her when she told them of the many passive-aggressive things her Mother did every day to her.

When she confronted Ms. Honeydripper, she would always deny everything. She even heard her praying to God to help her daughter see that she was not the way she said she is. Her daughter realized then that her Mother was totally delusional as well. She would pretend she couldn't hear what she was saying when she tried to talk to her about the things she did to her daughter each day. In fact, she could hear everything but she used it to her own advantage to hear only what she wanted to hear and nothing more. She just blocked out the things she didn't want to hear.

This went on for many years, with people saying it must be the daughter's fault because Ms. Honeydripper was so sweet and nice all the time. The daughter only grew more withdrawn from people and more depressed at being accused of being the one mistreating her Mother. No one could ever find any abuse because there was none going on. She never once mistreated anyone her whole life. She was just a kind, nice person. She had no friends at all. She had no life at all but taking care of her Mother who was now confined to a wheelchair all the time. All that denial over the years had turned Ms. Honeydripper into an arthritic mess physically. She wanted her daughter to do everything for her, which her daughter did but she now resented. Her Mother never seemed to appreciate all that she did without to ensure she had everything she needed or wanted to make her life comfortable. She was the one who was being mistreated and abused though, not Ms. Honeydripper.

Ms. Honeydripper would pile tons of blankets on her bed, then urinate until the stench was almost unbearable. Her daughter would have to wash everything on the bed to get rid of the urine odor which reminded her of that smell in her dad's bedroom when she was a child. It reached out into the entire house, and she was constantly trying to clean everything.

She put all kinds of goodies out in zippered plastic bags so her Mother could get into them easily. Her arthritic hands could no longer open regular packages, and her daughter didn't want her to go lacking for anything.

Lights bothered her eyes. Loud noises hurt her ears. And stong foul odors sent her into overwhelm. Her Mother seemed to delight in pushing all her buttons each day until she went into overwhelm. Many days the daughter went into her bedroom and cried herself to sleep.

Her Mother would wait until she fell asleep, then come banging on the door waking her up again. She did this on purpose so her daughter would not get any rest. She only became more and more exhausted, until she was finally just burned out.

The daughter's life had gotten so miserable that death seemed to be her only exit. All she could think about was getting away from all the daily emotional pain to which she was constantly being subjected. Her life was filled with emotional anguish to the point that she felt like she lived in an emotional hell. She didn't want to commit suicide, so she prayed all the time for God to please just let her die quickly. But He never answered that prayer. She longed to just live alone in peace and quiet so she could begin to heal from the emotional trauma that her Mother had put her through for a lifetime. But she had given her Mother her word that she would take care of her as long as she lived. So she refused to put her into a nursing home. No one ever tried to really help the daughter at all. It seemed to her that the whole town was filled with nothing but liars and people who didn't care about either of them.

Her Mother would even refuse to take her meds, throwing them away but telling her daughter she had taken them. She would ask for them when her daughter didn't bring them in, and then throw them away when she did. It kept her daughter worried that if her Mother died, she would get blamed for not giving her meds when she was giving them right. It seemed to the daughter that her Mother must be staying awake at night thinking of new ways to torment her the next day. She was indeed doing that but no one would ever be able to prove it either.

No one ever believed the daughter when she would complain and ask for help taking care of her Mother. One night she just could not take it any longer. She took an overdose of sleeping pills. Her Mother found her and called EMS. The pills didn't kill her, but instead, ruined her organs so that she was in a vegetative state for the remainder of her life. The state court-ordered her to be confined to a Medicaid funded nursing home, totally dependent on its staff. What she had thought was an end became only the beginning of a lot more misery, pain, and suffering for herself.

Ms. Honeydripper was taken to a different, much better, nursing home where she constantly caused their lives to be as miserable as possible each day, until she finally died at a very old age. She fit right in there because they rarely got baths and all smelled of strong urine and fecal odors. She continued right on with her mind games with them all. No one could ever prove what she was doing. Even Ms. Honeydripper no longer realized what she was doing. She was completely oblivious that she was so manipulative of others.