"Well it has been almost 10 months since we spoke..."
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.