Thursday, July 27, 2006

 

Friendships that End Abruptly

During my life I've had several close friends or chums. I was thinking last night about one of them that ended abruptly. My friend made a tactless remark that ended our friendship. It happened when we were in grade school. His parents were richer than mine. We were discussing our Christmas presents. He thought about mine for a moment, then said, "That's right. You don't have much."

We had been close friends up to that moment. I don't recall ever saying another word to him.

That episode reminded me of two other friendships that ended abruptly. One was a friend I had in graduate school. His name was "Mac" and we were close. His wife and he invited me to a New Year's Eve party at their apartment where they introduced me to a very pretty girl. This girl eventually became my wife. Later, Mac and his wife asked me to be the godfather of his children.

We both left the university in Champaign, Illinois, and went our separate ways. I made a point of sending him and his wife a greeting card every year at Christmas time. For a few years, he or his wife would write back. Then, no response. I continued to send them the annual Christmas card. The cards were never returned, even though they had return addresses, so I supposed that they were delivered.

Finally, I had a visit from another University of Illinois friend. This was Louis C. He stayed with us one night. During his stay, he wanted to telephone my friend Mac, who hadn't responded to my Christmas cards for years. Louis was able to find out where Mac lived. We phoned him. He was living in retirement. Somehow I sensed that he didn't want me as a friend. He had been getting my greeting cards for years and hadn't bothered to answer any of them.

A third friend was a man I knew at work. His wife had multiple sclerosis. Over the years, her condition became gradually worse. Eventually she died. In order to cope with her condition and his grief at her passing, he turned to counseling. He spent time with counselers and took courses in counseling. He set himself up in business as a counseler. One day while my wife and I were on our way to a shopping mall we had a serious accident. I tried to make a left turn, not seeing an oncoming car. The car was a Chevy Camaro. It struck our car on the left side. My wife suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung. Our car was towed away to a repair shop. The other driver was cited for driving without a license. My wife was taken to a hospital. A policeman gave me a ride to the hospital, where I stayed with my wife while she waited for emergency treatment. Later she was moved to another hospital where our family doctor took over her treatment.

The accident unnerved me. I felt guilty at subjecting my wife to such trauma. If the other car had been driving a little faster, she might have been killed. I went to see my good friend to talk about the accident. He offered to counsel me. We talked for more than an hour. I felt pretty good, and happy that I had a sympathetic friend with whom I could share my troubles. At the conclusion of the session, he said that his usual fee for counseling was seventy-five dollars. I was shocked, but simply gave him the money, left, and never spoke to him for several years.

I like to compare that friend with another friend, also a co-worker. I went to talk to this other friend about my accident and my feeling. He and his wife took me to a pizza restaurant and fed me pizza and we talked about the accident and my wife's condition. He didn't want anything in return from me.
Comments:
You need many friends. Some will stay with you for a life time; others will move on or even desert you when you need them. My best friends today are friends that I didn't realize were good friends long ago; they seemed to be just acquaintances. Other best friends turned out to be fickle, as the three in my post.

If you can't find a best friend, have several good friends and be good friends to them. Perhaps in time one will become your best friend. Making friends is a life-time occupation.
 
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