Good-bye, Good Friend

Today I learned that an old friend died of lung cancer. I had no idea she was sick. We lost contact a few years back when she moved to Texas.

I used to date her son. I became friends with her and when I broke up with M, I kept talking to AJ. I guess most friendships wouldn’t have survived something like that, but it was an odd friendship to begin with being that there was so much difference in our age. Or maybe it wasn’t odd because we were actually very much alike.

I feel horrible. Two years ago I tried to contact her and didn’t have any luck so I just dropped it. I wish now I had tried harder.

I am angry with M. Wide Lawns has her Evil Ex, M is mine. In fact AJ and I did not part on the best of terms because of M.

AJ decided to move back to Texas but she didn’t want to sell her house. She offered it to M, but he wasn’t interested. She then asked me if I wanted to rent it and maybe later buy the house. I was thrilled. When I first started dating M we lived in that house. I didn’t work then, I just kept house. I woke M up every morning for work and I stayed home and cleaned. The house had the most wonderful deck and every day I swept the leaves off. I was very content. I read a lot. I took long walks in the woods. Then M would come home and we were together and I was happy. On weekends M chopped wood and I stacked it for him. I just lived.

But some people thought I was wasting time and not applying myself, so I went to college and then I got a job and I’ve never been as happy as I was in 1995.

So I was overjoyed to have that house because to me it represented a small piece of happiness. As soon as M heard about it he moved in. AJ and I fought and she moved away without speaking to me. I got this house and then M moved away and my dream home sold. The people who bought it love it and I am happy for them but boy am I ever pissed at M.

Every time I think I’m done with the man for good he reappears. He called my parents last week to tell them about AJ and he wanted to talk to me but my father wouldn’t give M my number. My daddy loves me very much.

So M left his number and my mother really pushed me to call and I was afraid if I didn’t M would keep calling and then Mom might break down and give him my number and that would upset Kevin. So being wary of caller id I called M from my parents’ house.

AJ died a month ago. She left me a box. She also wanted me to have some books. M said there was a stack of books by her hospital bed and one night she went through them and laid several on the bed. She didn’t open them, so M put them back. She restacked them again. He put them back again. She got them again. This happened three more times before he finally asked her what she was doing. “I’m getting books for Free.”

I don’t know why M didn’t call me before AJ died. I would have liked to talk to her. I feel like this is one more thing he’s screwed up just to spite me.

Another friend thinks AJ moved to Texas because she was already sick. She thinks maybe AJ didn’t want to burden me. Looking back on the events with that thought in mind it makes sense. She was going to the doctor a lot, but I put that down to the fact that she hadn’t been in years and doctors love to test for everything when a patient skips several annual visits. I never questioned why she went to the doctor in the first place. And she had talked about moving back home for years. There was actually no reason to do it then; she lost her job and then announced she was going back. I thought she moved because the job tie had been cut. And then before moving she took a cruise to Alaska. I thought she was going because her mother planned and paid for the trip, but why would she do that? They had never traveled anywhere before. Was that a dream that needed to be fulfilled before it was too late? And the party. AJ threw herself a going away party and invited people she hadn’t seen in years, even people she wasn’t on good terms with. Was she saying good-bye to all of us forever?

Since I have all these questions I can’t ask her I’ve decided to use this post as a letter to AJ. Maybe her spirit will understand.

AJ-
Thanks for teaching me how to cook. I’m still not a great cook and I still don’t like it very much but you ensured that I wouldn’t starve and I now have courage to try new things. I eat a lot healthier now. I was afraid of cooking before. I thought I would mess up. You taught me that if I ruined a dish I could throw it out and start over. Thanks. BWT, I’ve only needed to throw out two dishes.

Thanks for sharing books with me. I already loved to read, but I didn’t have a taste for sci-fi and mystery until you loaned me Isaac Asimov. Thanks, too for knowing the story I was describing was Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder.

Thank you for showing me quilts. Of course I grew up sleeping under the quilts my grandmother made, but I never knew they were art. You changed my perception of quilts so dramatically that you might as well as been the first person who showed them to me.

Thanks for being there when my father had his emergency triple bypass. You helped me so much then.

Thanks for listening when I ranted and raved about how horribly M treated me. I know you understood as a woman, but I know that as his mother it must have hurt you deeply.

I’m so sorry we fought about the house. I wish you had told me what was going on. I wouldn’t have been mad then; it was just a house.

I wish I had gotten to say good-bye in person or at least over the phone. I miss you.

Love,
RG