My Daughter Said: “The Best Gift Would Be If You Just Died” – So I Immediately Canceled the Funding.

The Birthday Gift That Changed Everything

It was my daughter Rebecca’s 45th birthday, and I had arrived early at her house with the cake I had specially ordered from her favorite bakery. It cost $200, but for my only daughter, nothing was too expensive.

I knocked on the door with a smile, expecting to see her face light up like it did when she was a little girl. But when she opened it, her expression was one of total annoyance.

“Oh it’s you,” she muttered without even looking me in the eye.

“Happy birthday my love,” I said, extending the cake with the little candles already in place.

“I brought your favorite chocolate with strawberries, just like when you were little.”

Rebecca sighed deeply as if my presents were an unbearable burden.

“Mom, we need to talk,” she said dryly, letting me in without even thanking me for the cake.

We sat in the living room of her beautiful house, the house that I had completely financed when she and Hugo got married. It had been $150,000 from my life savings, money I had saved penny by penny working double shifts as a nurse for 40 years.

“You know, Mom,” Rebecca began in that cold voice she had developed in recent years.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my birthday, about gifts, about what would really make me happy.”

I nodded enthusiastically.

“Of course, my love. Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you—a trip, jewelry, maybe that new car you mentioned.”

Rebecca looked me directly in the eyes and what I saw there chilled me to the bone. It was pure contempt.

“What I would like most as a birthday gift,” she said slowly, savoring each word, “is for you to just die.”

The world stopped. I literally felt as if someone had ripped my heart out of my chest.

The words echoed in my ears like an endless refrain. My daughter, my own daughter, had wished for my death as a birthday present.

“What… what did you just say?” I managed to whisper, feeling tears begin to well up in my eyes.

“You heard me,” she continued with a coldness that cut through me like knives.

“I’m tired of you, Mom. Tired of your constant calls, your unexpected visits, of you always being here bothering me. My life would be so much easier and happier if you just disappeared.”

My hands were shaking uncontrollably. 72 years of life, 45 of being her mother, and never ever did I think I would hear those words come out of her mouth.

“Rebecca,” I managed to say between sobs.

“I’m your mother. I’ve given you everything. I’ve sacrificed everything for you.”

“Exactly,” she interrupted, getting up from the sofa.

“And that’s precisely why you’re suffocating me. I can’t breathe with your constant presence. I need freedom. I need you to let me live my life without your drama and your emotional needs.”

The $200 cake was still in my hands, the little candles beginning to melt. Everything I had dreamed of for that day—hugs, laughter, maybe a family dinner—was vanishing like smoke.

“But daughter,” I tried one more time.

“I just want to be close to you, to be a part of your life. You’re all I have.”

“And that’s precisely the problem,” she responded, crossing her arms.

“That I’m all you have. Get a life of your own and leave me alone.”

I rose from the sofa with trembling legs, carrying that cake that now felt like a mockery.

“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me,” I murmured.

“After everything I’ve done for you.”

“Everything you’ve done,” she laughed sarcastically.

“Mom, everything you’ve done has been for your own benefit, to feel needed, to have control over my life. But I’m not a little girl anymore.”

I walked towards the door, feeling as if each step cost me years of my life. When I reached the threshold, I turned back one last time, hoping to see some sign of remorse in her eyes, some hint of the sweet girl she once was.

But all I saw was impatience. Impatience for me to leave at once and let her celebrate her birthday without the nuisance I represented.

“Happy birthday, Rebecca,” I murmured, and walked out of that house, closing the door behind me.

I didn’t know at that moment that it would be the last time I would enter that house as the mother who had sacrificed everything. Because what my daughter didn’t know was that she had just awakened something in me that had been dormant for decades.

I arrived at my small apartment with my legs shaking and my heart shattered. The $200 cake ended up in the trash, its melted candles like my tears that wouldn’t stop falling.

I sat on my old sofa, the same sofa where I had nursed Rebecca as a baby, where I had read her stories for years, where I had cried with happiness every time she called me mommy. How had it come to this?

How could my own daughter, the child I had carried in my womb for nine months, wish for my death with such coldness? I began to remember everything, absolutely everything I had done for her over these 45 years.

When she was three years old and got sick with pneumonia, I worked triple shifts at the hospital to pay for her medicine. It was $1,200 for antibiotics that my insurance didn’t cover, money I got by selling my late mother’s jewelry.

When she turned 16 and wanted to go to the prom, I worked entire weekends for four months to buy her that pink dress that cost $800. I remember how her eyes shone when she tried it on.

“Thanks Mommy, you’re the best in the world,” she had said, hugging me tightly.

In college, when she changed her major for the third time, I paid for every semester without a single complaint—$42,000 in total. Money I got by mortgaging my house.