At 6:15 AM on my wedding day, I found my dress shredded on the floor, scissors beside it. My fiancé, Mark, saw it, and we both knew who had done it—his mother, Linda.
She’d been acting erratic all week: throwing tantrums over the hotel suite, refusing to unlock doors, ignoring allergies, and insisting she sleep in the estate house with grown men.
When Mark called her, she hung up. I gave an ultimatum: she would not step foot on our wedding. Security enforced it.
My aunt Patty, a seamstress, salvaged a floor sample dress with safety pins, duct tape, and needle and thread. I walked down the aisle in pain, but the wedding went on. Mark’s mother repeatedly called, and we lied to guests about her absence.
After the wedding, we learned Linda had a golf-ball-sized glioblastoma pressing on her frontal lobe. Her aggression, confusion, and obsession with “fixing” things explained her behavior. She never left the hospital and died four months later.
We keep the scissors in our wedding album—a reminder that sometimes what looks like malice is actually a silent cry for help.