April 29, 2025 by Naomi Fletcher

I didn’t plan on snooping. It just sort of happened.

That day was a blur — the kind where you don’t even know if you’ve eaten or what time it is. My mom was lying there, breathing but barely aware, after a stroke and brain bleed that morning. Tubes everywhere, machines beeping softly. I sat next to her, trying to be present, but my mind was a thousand miles away.

Her phone buzzed a few times on the bedside table. Out of habit, I picked it up. Notifications from random guys. Names I didn’t recognize. Same old story.

I should’ve left it alone. I know that. But something in me — maybe anger, maybe years of feeling second best — pushed me to unlock it.

And there it all was. Text after text after text. Some men half her age. Some conversations that made me feel sick. Some desperate, others cruel. Photos. Promises. Lies. It wasn’t even shocking anymore. It was like flipping through a scrapbook of all the ways she had let us down before.

My mom has always chased men who were wrong for her—and for us. Men who drank too much, lied too much, cared too little. It was like she couldn’t help herself. Or maybe she didn’t want to. I don’t know. Either way, it was always the same: she put them before me, before my brothers and sisters. Every time.

Seeing it spelled out in messages just confirmed what I already knew but never wanted to fully admit. Even in her weakest moment, even when she might not make it through the night, her life was cluttered with this chaos she chose over and over again.

I felt guilty looking, but honestly? I felt worse pretending I didn’t know who she really was.

I wish I could say I forgave her right there, holding her hand while she drifted in and out of sleep. But forgiveness is complicated when the hurt runs that deep. Right now, I’m just trying to accept that some things aren’t mine to fix — no matter how badly I wish they were.