Tell Your Story

She was my hero first, saving me from the school bully who's job it was
to intimidate the new kid at the school. We were in second grade.
Katie was beautiful, even then, with crystal blue eyes and high
cheekbones and beautiful blond wavy hair (the kind of fresh beauty
you'd find in California, not in our little Oregon 'burb), but still
there she was, yelling at the girl who had just pushed me down, me
looking up to see this sweet, but not innocent, face with this angry
voice pouring out, "If you ever touch her again, I'll kill you!" WOW!
At age 7 you just didn't say those things.

Turns out she had heard a lot of those kinds of things in her short
life. Her "Daddy" drank, her mother drank and took loads of Valium.
She had three very-much older step brothers (one of them still living
at home) and one even older step-sister who was already married and
gone far, far, away. The older brother at home was either very kind to
her (usually when her mom was incapacitated by drugs and alcohol) or
very, very cruel to her. She told me once that when one of the other
brothers was visiting the two brothers put her down inside the drainage
ditch in the road and stood on the grate so she couldn't get out! But
that wasn't the worst of it. Years later when the brother she was
"closest" to, the one who had lived at home when she was very young,
was arrested and convicted of molesting his own children and
step-children, she remembered him molesting her too.

What I remembered most was that she always wanted to go to my house
after school. And never hers. I didn't know why. But as we got
older, and braver I suppose, we would go to her house sometimes. It
was always dark inside and her mother would yell at her father "If you
ever touch her again, I'll kill you!" and then pass out. I had no
idea who "her" was. It was only years later when Katie and I decided
to sneak a smoke from her father's pack of Camels that I understood.
When he caught us, he took his belt from his waist and bent Katie over
his knee. He didn't stop until she was bleeding. I cried all the way
home. Katie didn't come to school for the rest of the week and when I
saw her at school the following Monday I knew better than to bring up
the awful thing I had witnessed. He died that same year, and I
remember being very relieved, almost happy. Of couse, to Katie, I only
showed sadness and compassion. About that same time, Katie found
speed. And she shared! And it was fun! We'd tickle each other's
scalp during class and zip to our locker during lunch to re-dose
ourselves. On the weekends we found that speed and alcohol give a
great buzz and we'd spend our time chasing boys and going to illicit
parties and sneaking out of our houses, each telling our parent's we
were spending the night at the other's house.

One night Katie decided she wanted to sleep with a boy she had liked.
We were inseparable until she got this boyfriend and I was jealous and
hurt and a little bit freaked out that she was having sex. We stopped
talking for a year. The next year I had a boyfriend and I realized
that she had always been a bit more "advanced" than I was and we made
up. I thought everything was back to "normal".

After high school we moved into a ratty little apartment together. She
was working downtown, and I held on to the job I started during my
senior year. I also held on to the boyfriend I'd had since our Junior
year. Her bedroom seemed to have a revolving door and the boys she
picked always seemed like jerks to me. One particular afternoon I
arrived home to hear Steve (her latest jerk) beating her up; she was
crying and begging him to stop and he was beating the crap out of her!
I couldn't believe it and my gut took over. I should have called the
cops, but instead I burst into her bedroom and screamed as loud as I
could, "If you ever touch her again, I'll have you maimed! Now get out
of my house you asshole and don't come back!" A week later, she
invited him back into her life. He said he was sorry, he said he loved
her. I was furious. But she seemed happy and what I wanted more than
anything was for her to be happy. So I didn't say anything, but he was
not allowed in our apartment. She was somewhat irritated about that,
but she didn't fight it too much. And shortly after that she moved
out. I moved back home. Then when Steve dumped her she begged me to
move in together again, which I did, but on the condition that we have
more roommates. I didn't want to get stranded again.

Fast forward through a pregnancy (hers), coerced marriage (hers), big
white wedding (mine), a mother's funeral (hers), two divorces (ours),
two remarriages (ours). Ironically we both married Dougs. But our
Dougs were very different men. Hers was a mormon and when she married
him I was not allowed to come. Mine was a party-boy and when I married
him, she called crying and apologizing that she had not come to the
wedding, something had come up and she and Doug were moving from
Puyallup, Washington to Alabaster, Alabama. She told me she felt
trapped and controlled and Doug made all the decisions and he would not
let her come to California for her best friends wedding. I traveled a
lot for business and once I went out of my way to go visit her in
Alabaster, AL. Good lord, she was a mess. Her second pregnancy was
incredibly difficult, she missed her first son, whom she had left in
Oregon with his alcoholic, pot-head father, terribly. She had been
diagnosed with Crone's disease, and her step-daughter had an incurable
degenerative disease and was losing her hearing at age 6. Her Doug was
seemingly oblivious to all this tragedy, he just went to work for 10 -
12 hours a day and came home to a hot meal. Katie was trying to be a
good mormon wife and had learned to grind wheat into flour and churn
milk into butter. She showed me their stockpile of supplies and their
shelter should nuclear war break-out.

It was pitiful to me. I had tried to save her so many times. I had
given her my heart. I had given her my family. I would have given her
my life, if that were possible. She was so beautiful inside and out,
and she deserved to be so happy. And yet she was anything but happy.
I felt like I had failed her.

They kept moving, supposedly because of Doug's ladder-climbing
egocentric selfishness. From Alabama to Arizona, from Arizona to
Wisconsin and back to Arizona because the winters in Wisconsin wreaked
havoc on Katie's frail body. She had by now been diagnosed with Lupus.
From Arizona they moved to Southern California and I was ecstatic
because I live in Northern California. After 15 years we would finally
be in the same time zone again! We were about to turn 40 and to be
together to celebrate that milestone was heart-warming and exciting and
a little bit dangerous. She came to visit me in May and we got drunk,
got high, and went to a concert! We were acting like we were kids
again, and it was a blast. We stayed up all night talking and looking
at old yearbooks, scrapbooks, and pictures. In August I went to visit
her and we repeated the activities of May. It was like old times and
she seemed to be healthy and somewhat happy. A year later, all of that
changed. A year later, our other close friend (a roommate from so long
ago) also turned 40 and we attempted to re-create the celebrations of
the year prior. Only this time something went horribly wrong.

I arrived in So. Cal to find Katie agitated, driving erratically, and
bitchy. I called our other friend to warn her. When Katie saw me on
the phone she questioned me. Who was I talking to? What did I tell
her? Why did I need to call her when we were supposed to be spending
this time together? That night at a concert, Katie went completely
nuts. Nobody could hear a thing because the music was so loud, but she
was convinced we were talking about her. She spent a lot of time in
the bathroom. We went in to find her crying uncontrollably. She said
she wanted to go home and we decided we had to convince her to stay.
We watched the concert together, but no one was having any fun. My
other friend and I were convinced that things would be better in the
morning. We were driving down to San Diego. Katie said she needed to
stop and pick up a prescription. So we stopped. She took her meds in
the car. We had rented a convertible for the weekend and couldn't
think of anything more fun to do than to drive down the Pacific Coast
Highway with the top down. Katie sat in the back seat. About an hour
into the trip I realized she had stopped talking to us. I turned
around to find her passed out. At one point we stopped to eat, and had
to shake her and yell at her to get her awake. By the time we arrived
at the hotel, we realized she was nearly overdosed. But she managed to
pull herself together enough to get checked in to the hotel. That
night we were supposed to go out, but Katie was asleep by 9pm. By 10am
the next day, we were in crisis mode. Her Doug had called to tell her
he wanted a divorce and she had to get back to L.A. Crap! That meant
we had to drive her there, a 6 hour round-trip even in good traffic.
Why would he do that? Why couldn't he have waited until she got home
the next day! What a jerk! What an idiot! She's a wreck! What are
we going to do, just leave her? We were pissed off. They were ruining
my friend's birthday. What a nightmare.

Some days later, I get a call at home. Katie says, "I'm on my way to
be with my son in Oregon. Can I crash at your place?" Sure, Sure. I
say. Knowing what I know and knowing what I must do.

You see, I called her Doug to bitch him out and tell him what a
self-centered bastard he was and we ended up having a very, very long,
very revealing discussion about my best friend Katie. Turns out that
all these years she has been playing us against each other. Apparently
the "party-girl" I once knew and loved has turned into a junkie. And
junkies will do anything, ANYTHING, to get their fix, cover their lies,
and stay high. Katie has been addicted to crack since High School,
pain-killers since Alabama, and Oxycontin since it first appeared on
the market in 1995. She has told Doug that I'm the one who gets her
into the drugs when we party together, and she told me that Doug is the
one who is responsible for her misery and all those radical moves. In
fact, the reason for the moves is because Doug has been rescuing her
from crack houses, near arrests, and financial ruin for the past 17
years. Every time they moved, and he switched jobs it was because of
her. And when we did drugs together, she supplied them. (I always
wondered, how did she know where to find the stuff? That is one of the
awful things that goes through my mind when I think, "I should have
known, I should have seen it".) Her aches and pains are real but
exaggerated and she has found multiple Doctors to prescribe her the
meds she needs to manage her pain and get her really, really wasted.
She has stolen Oxy from church members. She actually tried to get a
job in a nursing home, so she could steal the patient's medications.
(They didn't hire her.) Her Crone's Disease may actually be her
internal organs shutting down - a side-affect of addiction. Her teeth
are falling out, and her beautiful blonde hair is kept very short to
hide that it too is falling out.

So on the day that she calls me crying that Doug has thrown her out of
the house and she has no where to go except to Oregon, I have already
spoken with an interventionist, a drug-treatment program in Newport
Beach, a Doctor, and Doug. All agree that if we are to help her we
must intervene, except for Doug who is so tired of trying to help her
that he can't be a part of an intervention, but he will find out if his
company will pay for rehab, "...and by the way", he says, "I didn't
throw her out, I was staying at a hotel so she could have the condo..."
So obvious now, so painfully obvious that she's crying out for
something. When she comes to my house, my job will be to convince her
that she's dehydrated and get her into an emergency room. There I will
tell the staff that she has threatened to kill herself. (Which she has
actually done. She told Doug that if he left her she had nothing to
live for and might as well just end it all.) We will be able to get
her committed and then, hopefully, into rehab.

She must have heard something in my voice, because I wait a long time
for her arrival. She should have been here by now. I call her cell
phone, no answer. I try to get some sleep, but where could she be?
Has she already killed herself? Did she crash her car and she's lying
in a ditch somewhere? In the morning, the phone rings, it is her. She
decided to just drive straight on through. Dammit! She must have
known I was going to try to help her. And she doesn't want help. Not
yet anyway.

Oh there is so much more drama that I could go into, the phone calls,
the guilt, the accusing, the name-calling, the apologizing. But the
unchangeable end of this story is that she just doesn't want help. She
wants to be miserable. She believes that's what she deserves because
that's all anybody (besides myself and my mom) ever told her.

I have had a lot of conflicting emotions about this friend. Mostly
grief. I miss her so. And then I stop and think, how can I miss
someone who wasn't even really the person they pretended to be. For
the past 18 years, she has not been a friend to me. She has lied to
me. She has lied about me. So I grieve for 18 years of lost time,
lost reality, lost words, lost little girls who grew up together, but
were never the same.

Posted by webmaster at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well it has been almost 10 months since we spoke, except for the occasional wave hello or the rare telephone call asking for her daughter to come home or my daughter to come home from playing at each others houses.

We have been friends and neighbors almost since the day I moved into the neighborhood. Our daughters have been friends ever since they knew they were the same age and next-door neighbors. I considered her daughter to be my adopted daughter and I thought she felt the same.

The fall of 2004 my neighbors asked my daughter to go to their Church and she went. Every week my daughter was asked to attend church with her friend and I always said yes because my daughter loved going with her friend and I felt that if they kept asking her to attend and they didn't mind taking her what harm would it be.
I was not attending Church so I thought at least my daughter was learning and enjoyed going. My daughter came to think of this church as her own and was participating in all youth activities such as Christmas plays, dances in parades, Church picnics, etc. along with her friend.

In August of 2004 this Church was conducting a Bible School for a full week in the evenings. Of course I let my daughter go, it was going to be so much fun, one full week at church, 3 hours of fun each evening with her best friend, why wouldn't I?

Well that wasn't the case, another little girl from down the street was going to attend which was fine except that when these 3 girls get together there is always one who gets left out. Don't get me wrong, my daughter and this third friend get along just fine but the three of them together no way. Apparently at Bible School my daughter was separated from the other two and the nightmare began. Of course my daughter's feelings were hurt that the friend she thought she would be spending every evening with was not going to happen. So my daughter came home and told me this had happened and asked if she could bring another friend to Bible School so she wouldn't feel so alone. I called the Church to see if this would be ok and was told anyone who wanted to attend was welcome.

Apparently my daughter and her other friend (according to my neighbors phone call to me) was not talking to her daughter when they passed each other in the hall on their way to different learning rooms. Well as you can imagine I got an earful about my daughter and all her faults. My neighbor went on and on and on about everything that was wrong with my daughter and how she felt obligated to take my daughter to Church (even though they called her every Sunday to take her. Our daughters even had sleepovers on Saturday nights and I would get them both ready for Church)

I was told they would no longer take my daughter to Church and maybe it was best if she started attending her own church. Or if I preferred she could still attend "their" Church but they would no longer be taking her. I told my "friend" she was not obligated to take my daughter and I'm sorry she felt like she every was. I then had to tell my daughter that she would no longer be going to Church with her best friend but if she wanted me to take her there I would. This broke my daughter's heart and all she did was cry because the reason she enjoyed going to Church so much was because she was going with a friend and that made it fun to go

The bottom line to this story is that my "friend" crossed the line when all she could do was blame my daughter for everything that happened at Bible School and their was no blame on her daughter at all. She broke up a friendship between two little girls that probably would have worked this out themselves by the end of the week. We didn't speak after that week.

In all fairness, I must tell you that in November she dropped off a "I'm sorry card" with a book "In Celebration of our Friendship".
I did call to thank her for her gift but told her I felt that we needed to talk. That is the last time this incident was ever mentioned.

We wave the neighborly hello and smile if we catch each others glimpse, but other that that it doesn't seem like we have that much in common. It's hard to believe you can be so close for so many years and then not even be able to have a conversation. Maybe we really didn't have the bond I thought we had, because it seems like such an effort to talk to her now. I wouldn't even know how to begin. When the "Olive Branch" was offered I should have grabbed it, but I didn't and now I have a friend who got away.

Posted by webmaster at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes losing friends can be a positive, though painful impetus for change and growth. When they fade with time, it's ok, but I've never had one who called off our friendship as though it were some kind of guy thing. I've never had anyone block my phone calls, at least I assume that was what the funny sound was when I tried to call a couple of times.

I could feel our relationship deteriorating months before but I could not put my finger on it. She has had a long history of cutting people out of her life.
Apparently I have not been sensitive in the way that she would like when she informed me that I invalidate her. At the time I did not think to ask her for details but I did express that I was sorry and would be more aware of it in the future.
I assumed that my invalidating was just part of my brash nature...I would never knowingly say (or not say) anything to jeopardize our friendship!
I have agonized over whether or not to write her some kind of letter, but also realize that it we will never have the same depth of communication as most likely she will have a guard up and I will be walking on eggshells.
At church I find myself looking around for her, would I say "Hello'? Of course I would.

Then there was Marion. We developed a great friendship, I still miss her, especially during hot summer days on a blanket in the yard, when she was weaning her baby and I had a horrible urge to expose my breasts to the little guy. I told her about it and we had a great laugh.
But her husband worked in the same office as mine (we had introduced them) and the word was that he was going to be fired.

I_ was the one who felt I should back off........she was always very inquisitive about the inner working of the office and I was put in the very uncomfortable position of having this knowledge that I felt wasn't my place to divulge, especially since her husband had received adequate
warning as to what he needed to improve upon.

Years later we happened to meet at a large gathering......we both cried and I told her why I felt it necessary to hang our relationship in the woodwork, but I don't think her husband believed that mine was not the appointed Axe man so we still do not have our friendship restored.

There have been others, though not my personal friends in this particular office setting that for years have thought that my husband was the source of their demise of employment. Though he was always in a position of authority he was not always the one who had the last word; company protocol was the law.

There are others. Some of them can be explained away, some of them just fade. But the ones that are painful are the ones with history, the ones with depth and length and breadth, the ones you never discuss the details of your mutual ruminations to anyone else.

Posted by webmaster at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sue and I had been what I called "anam cara" (or soul friends in Irish) since we were in 9th grade. We could not have been closer. We celebrated all our milestones together including the births of our combined 7 children. She is Godmother to my youngest. In spite of living in different states and the occasional lapse in communication we remained each others touch stones. Neither one of us had especially happy marriages and we cried on each others shoulders frequently. We always had a fantasy of becoming single and doing the "Kate and Allie" thing. I don't know how I would have gotten through many of my tragedies without her. I believe she felt the same way.

In 1999 an opportunity presented itself to me to connect with an old boyfriend whom I had always believed was my true soulmate. As I was already planning my exit from my joyless marriage I made the regretful decision to have an affair with him. My now exhusband was a good man who did not deserve to be treated that way and I will always have to deal with the guilt I still have over not leaving him in the honest way he deserved. Be that as it may, Sue had always known of my feelings for the other man and COMPLETELY supported my decision to begin the affair saying that I deserved happiness and I was leaving my husband anyway. She actually became my "excuse" for being away for various weekends. If she ever had any hesitancy about being my alibi she never let on. And we NEVER had any problem with complete honesty with each other.
I continued the affair for a year+ before I eventually told my husband. But in the meantime, during one of my weekend visits with my lover, Sue invited us to dinner to meet her new love (she had left her abusive marriage several years before). Keep in mind that she knew my boyfriend from many years earlier when I had dated him. I was so excited. The 4 of us would become friends together and Sue and I could share in each others new found happiness.
We arrived at her house and were all in wonderful moods. Sue seemed happy to see my man again after so many years and took me aside to mention how gorgeous he still was. I was happy to meet the man who was making her so happy as well.
We all started drinking...a cocktail before dinner, then wine with dinner followed by after dinner cordials!! I am a lightweight when it comes to alcohol and I got pretty blasted pretty quickly. During the meal, Sue sat across from my man and at one point asked him were his feet were. In hind sight I realize she was trying to play footsies with him! But not to worry. Sue was always a flirt and I wouldn't have minded if it had stopped there. During the period after our meal while we were having our cordials I suddenly ended up face down at the table--passed right out according to my boyfriend who had never seen me do that before and to this day hasn't seen it again. I came to with a strong need to run to the bathroom to be sick. I guess I was in there for an hour or two. Both Sue and my boyfriend came in frequently to see how I was. After an indeterminate length of time I finally sobered up enough to leave the bathroom. When I exited the room I was greeted by almost total darkness in the living room. As my eyes adjusted I cam across a sight I will never forget--- my man bending over a prone Sue on the couch. I gasped and started crying. Both of them jumped up and tried to assure me that nothing had happened. I was inconsolable. I threw myself down on a bed while both of them tried to comfort me. They weren't aware that I was sober enough by that time to hear and absorb everything they were saying to each other. Sue was saying "what am I going to do? She's my heart. I can't lose her". He was saying, "Sue, you've always been a tease". Anyway, he finally got me out of there and we went back to his house where I was going to expect a real good explanation for what I saw. I had no idea what had become of Sue's boyfriend through all of this.
He explained that while I was in the bathroom, Sue's boyfriend eventually passed out as well in a bed. Sue went to join him but left the door open. My boyfriend spent the next several minutes just pacing, waiting for me to feel better. At one point Sue called him in to the bedroom where she and her guy were. He was fast asleep. My guy got closer to the bed as Sue was trying to whisper something to him When he was close enough she reached into his shorts and fondled him. He was completely caught off guard and retreated. He admitted to me that it was not an unpleasant thing. But he was pretty freaked out about it. At that point he says he came to see me in the bathroom to try to get me to leave. He felt that things had gotten too weird and he just wanted out. But I still wasn't budging! He went back into the living room and paced some more. At some point Sue came out of the bedroom she was in and lay down on the couch. She called him over to her and asked him to sit down on the edge of the couch which he stupidly did. He claims she pulled him down on top of her and at that point I exited the bathroom and saw them together.
I was furious with both of them but I believed his story and he begged my forgiveness. He admitted that he was flattered and didn't try too hard to resist but he maintained that she was the aggressor. I went back to my home the next day heartbroken believing that I could never forgive Sue.
A few days past and I didn't hear from Sue. I was expecting something in the way of an apology. I had calmed down and decided that we were all blasted and I wasn't going to throw away a 34 yr old friendship over it. When 3 days past I couldn't take it anymore and I called her. All she could say was that she didn't remember anything and that I didn't make a very good impression on HER boyfriend. She also said that my man wasn't the man my soon to be ex was. If she didn't remember anything why would she say that? All I wanted was a simple apology and her side of the story if she wanted me to hear it. I was getting ready to move to where I would only be 20 min. from her...the realization of our lifelong dreams to be able to see each other whenever we wanted. I was NOT going to let some bad behavior during a drunken evening come between us. A SIMPLY "I'M SORRY IF I DID ANYTHING TO HURT YOU". To this day I'm heart broken that our friendship wasn't worth that to her. I have made a few attempts at reconciliation to no avail. She treats me like she was the victim in it. I contacted her several months ago with one last attempt at which time (via e-mail) she announced that that night was a closed subject. She also reiterated as she had during previous attempts on my part that what I did to my ex was so wrong. AND SHE HAD BEEN MY BIGGEST SUPPORTER UNTIL THAT NIGHT.
My family all know the story and try to comfort me by saying she wasn't who I thought she was and it's ultimately her loss. I was always there for her. I've gone through a lot of bad stuff the past few years including almost dying and not having her has made those times even harder. I miss her (or who I thought she was) more than I can say. The void in my life is tremendous. I have no other real close friends to whom I can tell everything. By the way I am still with the same man 5 years later and although we have our ups and downs he has been completely faithful to me. I also believe that she gave some kind of twisted version of the story to mutual acquaintances who have ceased casual contact with me. She had always been better at keeping in touch with them so it makes sense that they would believe her.
Well that's my story of lost friendship. I'm not sure I will ever completely get over it. I am going out today to buy your book in the hope of finding some comfort in the words of others who have been through similar heartbreaks.
Thanks for giving me a forum.

Posted by webmaster at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kimberly Jaworski was a small girl, slight in stature, with blonde hair and brown eyes. We started kindergarten together in the fall of 1976. We were four years old. The school was a small private Catholic school, the church was on the first floor of the school. Mrs. Dudley was our teacher and we played with blocks and doll houses, brought our lunch in metal lunchboxes depicting Raggedy Ann. We learned to spell our names and sang songs accompanied by Mrs. Whidden on the piano. We were sternly lectured to be respective of Mrs. Whidden as she made "pennies' and we were lucky to have her instruction. We sang with great vigor and Mrs. Whidden taught us that God loved our voices, no matter how horrible we perceived ourselves to sound. We went to Mass twice a week, and a third time on Sundays with our parents. Kim and I were featured in the local paper when we graduated from kindergarten. Kim is looking through her diploma as if it is a telescope, searching for the future. Special days were Field Days, when we would tie our ankles together to run a race and feast on hot dogs, chips and soda. The picnic benches outside were formed of concrete and we would carve our names and the ones we loved over the nine years we spent together at the school. Twenty five years later, I walked into that same kindergarten room to meet with other parents whose children were receiving their First Holy Communion and tears filled my eyes. The smell of the room remained the same, and the wonderful memories came flooding back. Other parents looked at me blankly when I said I attended kindergarten in this room, I felt they were intruders.

Kim was always the darling of the class, the smallest, most petite girl. Our class was made up of approximatley 25-30 kids, most of whom continued through eighth grade. In the sixth grade we had a small blonde teacher who adored Kim and despised me. I resented Kim for this perceived slight but by the eighth grade, Kim and I were very close friends.

The friendship grew closer when we transferred to a Catholic High School and her dad drove us to school every day. Kim and I would barely speak in the car accompanied by her older brother and father but on the weekends we would journey about our neighborhoods, sneaking up on prospecive boyfriend's homes and bicycling to the dollar movie theater. We spent many afternoons lamenting our lack of love affairs and daydreaming about our futures. Kim always had beautiful legs, probably from many hours spent playing tennis, and I tried to learn the secrets of shaving from her. A few times we snuck out the window to conduct surveilance on a particurlarly adored boy and her parents finally figured it out. I was banned from sleepovers after that night. It was not my object of affection we were watching, it was Kim's. We had a bet, a $200 bet, they would "scam", or hook up, prior to college. They never did.

Kim stopped me one time on the corner of her street. She told me she had a bad feeling she wouldn't live to see college. I told her she was crazy and a drama queen. She said she thought she would die young. It is a moment I can not stop replaying in my mind.

In high school, Kim and I remained friendly, althouth not close. We went to some parties together and there was always a feeling of loyalty that never diminished. Kim was much more popular than I, involved in many clubs and committees, determined to be successful.

I struggled and ultimately transferred to public school my junior year. Kim still reached out and invited me sporadically to parties her friends were attending. By 17, I ran off with a boy three years my senior and quit school. Kim sent me numerous letters, begging me to rethink my decision and offering her family's home as a place of refuge. Kim and I exchanged letters during that time period, hers full of wisdom for a girl her age, mine I am sure, full of ignorance.

I believe she met my baby, I do not recollect. I know she continued her education and became well versed in Spanish.

When I was about 27, I was a single mother with a nine year old daughter. I was taking my daughter to Mass regularly, searching for an answer. One evening, a prayer was said for Kim Jaworski, sick with cancer.

I called the nun who knew both of us from our days at school and she told me Kim was suffering from ovarian cancer.

I reached out for our friends from fourteen years ago and begged them to send cards to Kim. I found one friend living in Georgia, working as an accountant. Another had a landscape business with her sister locally. I sent a card and included my address and phone number. Kim had recently married and was living about fory minutes south of her hometown.

This is the part I hate to write about, hate to think about. I was involved in an ugly relationship at the time. This man consumed me and everything I cared about, I pushed to the side. I know Kim called me and left a message at some point during that time. She was in remission, she was happy and doing great, she would be in town soon and would love to see me. I ignored her message. Why? I do not know. Was I selfishly involved? Probably. Was I afraid of death? Definately. Did I feel I was not yet successful enough to impress her? Most likely.

Regardless, I ignored the message. I will never stop regretting it. I think about Kim at least once a month and tears come to my eyes. I should have had lunch with her, drank a margarita, laughed with her. She would not have cared how successful I was.

One day, I think it was in 2002, I opened the local section of the paper and scanned the obituaries. I was at work, sitting in the local diner at the bar. Immediately, tears flodded my eyes as I read Kimberly Jaworski Graser was dead. The waitress who served me every day saw my face and asked if I was all right. I couldn't speak and left the restaurant. I felt like my heart was broken. She died anyway, when I heard she was better, I thought she would be o.k. but she died, and I felt so guilty. No funeral service was planned, it would be announced at a later date.

I immediately sent flowers to her mother who I knew since I was four. I expressed my sympathy and asked to be notified of any memorial service.

About a year later, I ran into a former teacher who lived across the street from Kim. She told me the memorial service was beautiful.

I never got a chance to say good bye to Kim, but with all of her wisdom, I believe she probably knew how much she was loved. I hope so anyway.

Your book has helped me with my guilt to a degree. Maybe others will read about the mistake I made and avoid making the same mistake. I think about Kim's mom every Mother's Day, right around the time she died. I think about sending a card, but I do not want to bother her....I am afraid I will always be bothered by this error in judgement.

Thank you,
Alison

Posted by webmaster at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Susie, on her Not a Habit blog, writes about her take on The Friend Who Got Away.

Posted by webmaster at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This story comes from reader Kimberly:

Hello,
I just got the book yesterday, and have completed most of the stories in the book, in one evening. It has been a journey through my own lost friendship that I have taken many a time. There have been so many stories I've read where the friendship, the deep bond, is so obviously still there that it pains me to hear these stories as much as it does for me to reflect on mine

Ann Hood's in particular seems to me so clearly a case where her friend, very simply, blames herself for Ann's daughter Grace's death. If I followed the story correctly, they had gone out the evening when the fever began to spike, of course not knowing what would happen. Though of course it was no one's fault, I really feel that her friend Amelia just felt as though it were her own fault, and she probably believes Ann Hood blames her too. That's why she comes sometimes, but stays on the periphery. She would not come there if she still did not care. But she is racked with guilt and doubt.

My story has been tragic enough, but too bad for me I can offer no solutions as to how to regain my own best friend. We've been more like mortal enemies for over a year now, since last February, though I don't know if the fact that she never has said ANYTHING to me since then can be taken as an enemy. We met at our sons' school about 4 yrs ago, almost 5 now. I have one son and she has 2, her oldest has a congenital birth anomaly and is my son's age. From the minute we met we hit it off. Everything about us was either the same or very similar, a point which always felt like a badge of honor to us. We even had similar names, her first being a variation of my middle. And interestingly, my family always has called me by my middle name, I use my first outside the family only.

When I was 15 I lost my sister suddenly to drowning.

That plus childhood mistreatment from my father in the form of verbal abusiveness and spanking (more like beatings), made me at first simply incredulous that she could want to be friends with me. I just didn't have many close to me, and felt I had a penchant for losing those who would have been. So at first there was her just almost all but saying she wanted to be friends, and me being too much in disbelief to pick up the signals, but still hopeful enough that I was warily returning them. When we let our guards down enough, we began to go out for coffee after morning drop-off at school. We found we were similar in shopping interests, intellect, and even an interest in fishing. There are very few girls in our city that like to fish! And we both loved fishing. She eventually offered to me that her parents were both abusive to her and her siblings. I used to usually keep that to myself. When I heard it, it allowed another guard to fall and I told her about my father. We were similar in even that, though with me it was one parent. We already had a bond because each of her boys were in my son's class, and the boys already had a great fondness going for each other. Our bond only deepened. We loved each other a great deal. For each of us, I don't think either of us had the opportunity to make many friends and we were very happy about finding each other. I'm married 12 yrs now, and she was in the process of finalizing a divorce. Her marriage had about the same duration as mine does.

We began to become inseparable, doing things as much or more together on our own as with the kids. We were both at-home moms and at least once a week made it a point of doing things from going to antiques stores to going to our favorite housewares stores, just whatever we could. Then my last and only sibling left experienced a metastasis of breast cancer, which had been in remission for 10 yrs. This began in 2003. My sister told me the day before my birthday that the cancer was back. This sister was almost 20 yrs older. My other who had died when I was 15, 10 yrs older. Needless to say this news gave me a restlessness that wouldn't wait.

My friend was the only one who stood to be left who was like a sister to me. As my sister got sicker, my restlessness grew and I know I became a lot more just different than usual. We began to do some drinking when we were out, my friend and I, but what I didn't know was that my friend had a big fear of someone overdoing it. I was drowning my sorrows and trying to make the fear of having to go through another loss abate some, and also the fear of having no more siblings. My friend stopped and told me she wanted me to as well. So I did. But then I became bothered about the WAY she told me. I felt like I was losing her friendship too, that she was losing her patience with me. We were to take the boys sledding one day in the winter of last year, early February. She didn't have sleds and my son and I were going to pick up a couple for her before meeting them at the hill, so I had to call her a few times. Then I got stuck in some unexpected traffic and called her again She said simply "Kim, you have to quit calling me or I'll never get out of the house", firmly but not angrily. I didn't know it at the time but her son, the oldest, had been having trouble that morning with his stomach. We were supposed to meet at 10:30 that morning, and were trying to squeeze all this in before an appointment she had for herself that day. I had always been understanding about her son. I never rushed her, genuinely never felt he was any different than anyone else. People can't help if they come into the world with any "differences" and to me it's never been any big deal. My husband and I raise our son the same way, and so he never knew any "difference" either.

I know I panicked looking back. I felt I let her down. I felt she wanted to get away from my restlessness and my grief. My sister who was dying, Felicia, of course brought up things about Glenda, my other sister, and when I had mentioned this several times to my friend, she thought I was not enought done with even my Glenda grief. I felt she lost patience with me. I decided to leave a message on her cell phone about not wanting her to talk to me in the manner I felt she had, which really had been nothing and was borne of my own insecurities and the pressures of feeling like my sister Felicia was going to die. To make matters worse I tried to pick a time to make this call during off hours so that I would get her voicemail and just leave a message. The phone woke her instead, she had accidentally left it on. She called the next day, which was the last day I talked to her, and we still had a chance, but I was so afraid I might "snap" at her if she did it again, that I kept saying "I don't know, I don't know." Probably she thought I meant I don't know about the friendship, and it just went south from there.

Days went by and nothing. I tried a couple times to call, a couple to leave email. Still no answer. Then, she sent me an email saying we could no longer be friends. She said it was excruciating. I wrote back that it was excruciating because we shouldn't be doing this. I tried my best to explain. The more I explained the more ingrained her silence became. We already, from the outset of this were forced by this to pass each other at school without a word. A connectedness that often found us driving up at exactly the same time, as friends, became a curse of coming in time after time at exactly the same time. I couldn't stand it. It's a small school and many parents know each other and there is lots of regular greeting every day. She would have it no other way. I tried to ask her to let's just talk. The one thing she said was "It's too hard". My sister went into the hospital a week after my friend dumped me. She had congestive heart failure from the radiation or from the chemo she had been getting. That's what had been making her get worse and worse, the fact that they then found her heart to only be at 20% capacity. Felicia and I did okay with a relationship, but she was never as close to me or Glenda as Glenda had been to me, and my best friend was like the close-in-age sister I never had, and the close sister I never got to see into my adulthood. I cried and cried. I got nightmares, which I still have every night to this day.

Felicia died this past November. My friend, who I know had to find out through a friend of a friend, never said a single word in condolence. That hurt me, though how I could expect she would even do that makes me wonder why I thought she would. Once I sent her an email saying how stupid it is to avoid each other like little kids, and how hard that's been on me. I told her she needn't worry, I had gotten her message and if we wound up at a school assembly together I wouldn't say a single word. The significance of that is, she came to the very next assembly, waited in the halls for my son's class to file through, and said hello specifically to him and asked how he was doing. I became guardedly filled with hope. She of course has never said another thing. But maybe it means she still cares and is hurting too. The pain of the whole thing is immense. I miss that my sister has been gone about 7 months now--I have been refusing to keep count because it gets hard. I miss that my friend and I don't have each other. She had said I was very supportive about her grief surrounding her son's challenges, which of course is very ongoing in nature. And she had been very supportive up until that snag--the only fight we ever had.

I wish with all my being I had never made that phone call. I miss my friend more than I can say, and always will. Her son always sees me in the halls and still, naturally, speaks to me. He wants a playdate and can't understand what might be going on. It's been a strain being at school for me. There are so many other nuances I don't have time to get into them all. It's a sad situation all the way around.

Thank you for listening to my story.
Kimberly

Posted by webmaster at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The bad news is that the Tell Your Story blog database got corrupted somehow (translation: all the entries were lost.)

The good news is that we're back now and in the process of recovering the stories from our backup.

Posted by webmaster at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)