Who was your first best friend? Are you still in contact with each other? What do you remember about the friendship?
The majority of my growing up my best friend was Kathy M. We rode the bus together. We attended school together. We had similar country-girl lives. In junior and high school we were inseparable. More weekends than not we were spending the night at each other's homes. After graduation we both even attended BYU for our university studies.
We had been in tight contact until shortly after my kids were born. Her first marriage broke up in a rather ugly and hurtful way far beyond what I understood at the time. At our 10 year high school reunion I crossed a line and told her what I thought of some of her choices--completely out of bound as I now know--and she didn't speak to me again for 20 years. I regretted what I said from almost the very moment I said it.
We saw each other at the 20 year reunion--but our greetings were superficial and very brief and a little more than awkward.
By our 30th reunion this past summer, her life had radically changed. She was divorced a second time and was now living in a committed lesbian relationship. At the reunion I took the chance to ask her how she really was and how her kids were. I asked how her parents and sister were doing. I feel so grateful that she took the questions in the genuine way I meant them and --whether it was the wine or something else talking--she told me JUST how things stood in her life. Since she had come out, her parents had disowned her and her sister didn't want much to do with her either. Her partner Stacey was there with her and frankly, I thought she was terrific! I took the chance again and told her that I was so sorry things weren't better with her family, but that I was so happy that she seemed so happy and at peace in herself and with Stacey. I also told her that I always just wanted her to be happy. We hugged and I felt like things are fallen back into place.
We aren't at any kind of similar place in our lives right now, but I am sincerely pleased that she has found some happiness after a life full of some really difficult and painful situations. She is now a Nurse Practitioner in Montana and a grandma three times over. I wish her nothing but continued happiness and joy and some sense of peace about her family. I have so many happy memories from growing up at each other's side. And that I can't ever regret.
Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Video Sunday
I believe there is a very special place in heaven for all the pets we have loved and who have loved us back with this kind of patient, unconditional love. If only everyone on earth could have a friend like this.
Have a beautiful Sabbath.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Like a Boomarang, back again
I received an email yesterday, by way of my HS class reunion message board. A former friend with whom I haven't spoken to for many years , save only a few pleasantries at my 20th reunion last summer, was reporting to the group that she was going to be grandmother at age 40! Her 19 year old daughter was expecting.
This same friend and I were inseparable from the time we were about 12. We went to junior and high schools together, attached at the hip. We spent five years at Girls' Camp. We nearly lived at each other's homes. We even came to BYU together as freshmen but, thinking with more maturity than we actually had a the time, chose not to room together that first year. In fact, we didn't even choose the same dorms. That first year of college was life shaping. And we each took radically different paths. But because we loved each other better than sisters, we stayed close.
Fast forward to our 10 Year Reunion. Knowing some changes were happening in her life, I expressed that I felt she was making a huge mistake at the time that didn't reflect the testimony I knew she had of the Gospel. Some of the choices she was making by that time were in total opposition to the commandments of God, as I understood them. So I told her I thought she was making a mistake. I told her, not to condemn her, but to help her see how she could be happier. Or so was my intention.
That very weekend she cut me out of her life and out of her kids' lives. She told me that I had no business interfering and telling her what to do. She left my parent's home never to speak to me again for ten years. It was devastating to me. I felt like part of me had been amputated.
About that same time I was dealing with some serious post-partum depression, after the birth of The Boy, and was fairly whacked out, generally. But her emotional hurt was almost more than I could take. It took many years to come to the realization that while I told her the truth, she wasn't ready to hear it and maybe I should have kept it to myself, but that didn't change the fact that it was true.
So, out of the blue, I get this list message that she is to be a grandma, just like her mom was when her own daughter was born. And I feel a little stunned. How else should I feel? I still believe that her life would be dramatically different had she stayed close to the Lord and the Gospel. But she chose otherwise. She has exercised a lot of options that I would not choose. Do I still love this friend? Of course. But it breaks my heart to know what she could have and what she has alternatively chosen for herself and her kids. And hearing from her, even if not directly, still feels like a punch to the stomach.
At our reunion last summer, she seemed happy, but was that just the outward appearance? Her new husband seemed very nice, but it was a reunion--what is he supposed to do? She spoke to me only long enough to introduce her husband to me and say hello. We took a picture with two other dear friends and that was it for the night. It felt like another emotional blow, like the previous reunion had been.
I guess some friendships, regardless of the time spent together, are good only for the time they lasted. Others, I am happy to report, have outlasted their seeming usefulness. Regardless of the duration, however, these relationships have to have a base of common interest and values, shared ideals and goals. Otherwise, it appears, the benefit is almost not worth the time to develop them.
I learned a lot from this friend and I had hoped that she had, in turn, learned a lot from me. I wish her well in her choices in life. And what I learned from her has turned into a series of life lessons, I suppose. I only hope that what she may have learned from me will occasionally come out and touch her heart, and remind her of someone who loved her once--a long, long time ago.
This same friend and I were inseparable from the time we were about 12. We went to junior and high schools together, attached at the hip. We spent five years at Girls' Camp. We nearly lived at each other's homes. We even came to BYU together as freshmen but, thinking with more maturity than we actually had a the time, chose not to room together that first year. In fact, we didn't even choose the same dorms. That first year of college was life shaping. And we each took radically different paths. But because we loved each other better than sisters, we stayed close.
Fast forward to our 10 Year Reunion. Knowing some changes were happening in her life, I expressed that I felt she was making a huge mistake at the time that didn't reflect the testimony I knew she had of the Gospel. Some of the choices she was making by that time were in total opposition to the commandments of God, as I understood them. So I told her I thought she was making a mistake. I told her, not to condemn her, but to help her see how she could be happier. Or so was my intention.
That very weekend she cut me out of her life and out of her kids' lives. She told me that I had no business interfering and telling her what to do. She left my parent's home never to speak to me again for ten years. It was devastating to me. I felt like part of me had been amputated.
About that same time I was dealing with some serious post-partum depression, after the birth of The Boy, and was fairly whacked out, generally. But her emotional hurt was almost more than I could take. It took many years to come to the realization that while I told her the truth, she wasn't ready to hear it and maybe I should have kept it to myself, but that didn't change the fact that it was true.
So, out of the blue, I get this list message that she is to be a grandma, just like her mom was when her own daughter was born. And I feel a little stunned. How else should I feel? I still believe that her life would be dramatically different had she stayed close to the Lord and the Gospel. But she chose otherwise. She has exercised a lot of options that I would not choose. Do I still love this friend? Of course. But it breaks my heart to know what she could have and what she has alternatively chosen for herself and her kids. And hearing from her, even if not directly, still feels like a punch to the stomach.
At our reunion last summer, she seemed happy, but was that just the outward appearance? Her new husband seemed very nice, but it was a reunion--what is he supposed to do? She spoke to me only long enough to introduce her husband to me and say hello. We took a picture with two other dear friends and that was it for the night. It felt like another emotional blow, like the previous reunion had been.
I guess some friendships, regardless of the time spent together, are good only for the time they lasted. Others, I am happy to report, have outlasted their seeming usefulness. Regardless of the duration, however, these relationships have to have a base of common interest and values, shared ideals and goals. Otherwise, it appears, the benefit is almost not worth the time to develop them.
I learned a lot from this friend and I had hoped that she had, in turn, learned a lot from me. I wish her well in her choices in life. And what I learned from her has turned into a series of life lessons, I suppose. I only hope that what she may have learned from me will occasionally come out and touch her heart, and remind her of someone who loved her once--a long, long time ago.
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