Grieving The Living
Without proper care and feeding, friendships are destined to wither and die
A little over a year ago, I experienced the end of a 40-year friendship. My once-best friend had ghosted me. When she stopped responding to my texts, I tried calling her. She didn’t pick up. Instead, she texted me to tell me she was overwhelmed.
She asked me to stop reaching out, promising to call me when things had calmed down in her life. This was a lie and I knew it. The response was her way of shutting me out. It hadn’t been the first time she’d done this throughout our decades-long friendship. But I decided that it would be the last. I’d lost my 15-year-old daughter to cancer in 2017 and I no longer had the energy or optimism to keep finding and losing this friend.
Months passed without hearing from her. I texted her one last time (against my better judgment) to wish her a happy birthday. No response. This was the final nail in the coffin for me. I unfollowed her on Instagram. I also eventually unfriended her on Facebook. I have only recently accepted that we’ll likely never speak again.
I wasn’t blameless in the ending of our friendship. I don’t think either of us were. We’d spent the bulk of our lives avoiding any real confrontation unless you count occasional explosive fights that resolved nothing. We…
