So I was re-reading A Wrinkle in Time, and I realized that the character of Mrs. Who strongly reminded me of a friend I lost earlier this year.
From junior high, I was friends with this guy and his two brothers. In high school (1987), my family moved away, but I kept in touch on visits and by phone. Gradually, my main friendship in the family shifted to my friend’s mother. We’d talk on the phone three or four times a year for an hour or two, about anything and everything, and I’d see the whole family every few years.
Last April, I called and left a message. No call back. I tried again about a month later, and I got the father of the family: she had died in February. I don’t know what from, but I know she had had one serious illness and was in her late 70s.
I’m not surprised that they forgot to notify me at the time—people who are grieving can be excused a lot of things. But how could people who have ostensibly been friends for thirty years fail to at least send me an email in response to my phone message?
So as well as losing my main friend, I guess my friendship with the rest of them was illusory. Death sucks, people suck. That is all.
Easy there. Maybe they were reluctant to tell you because they knew it would upset you.
Sometimes it takes people a minute to figure out how to break this type of news. Especially if they themselves are just getting back to a place of emotional normalcy. Rehashing all that stuff with you could very well reopen those wounds.
Oh, I know. I didn’t mean to come across as all bitter! What I meant is that it’s just a sad sign that the rest of the family isn’t as close as I thought. More of a recognition of the status quo than angrily breaking off relations.
When I did talk to the father of the family, he broke the news straightaway and we had a couple of minutes of polite chit-chat.
It’s happens when you don’t have any friends in common. I have a very good friend that I’ve known for 25 years. But we just hang out together. My Wife knows her and has met her once, but I doubt she would think to call her if something happened to me.
I wouldn’t judge your friendship of all of those years based on this one perceived slight, especially in times of grief when everyone grieves in different ways, and they have enough on their plate without each individual coming up to them wanting to know why they weren’t notified. It wouldn’t surprise me if they still thought you were a good friend, and no need for you to think otherwise of them either.
My mom passed this last Christmas. She preferred, no services, not even an obituary. She wanted to go out as quietly as possibly. We honored her wishes, and I wish to go the same as do most of my other family members.
Thanks for the perspective. I’m not thinking of it as a slight, really. I know it wasn’t deliberate. I’m sure there’s no ill will, on either side, and I can understand being forgotten in the intial grief.
What bothers me is that they didn’t respond to my message, which was already two months after the death. That should be long enough for the initial fog of grief to have dissipated in at least one of the survivors. “Hey, Dr. Drake left a message. You know, I bet he doesn’t know that Mom died.”
A friend would have called me back, or sent an email. An acquaintance might have just waited around a month or so to see if I called again. Ergo, they are cordial acquaintances, when I had thought they were friends. It just sucks to come to that realization on top of the grief I feel at the death, that’s all.
(It’s also possible that each person thought that somebody else HAD contacted me, which hadn’t occurred to me until just now. It’s not the kind of thing that would be productive to ask, but perhaps it’s what I’ll tell myself.)
It’s entirely possible they never heard the message. I’ve known people who had voicemail as part of their phone service but never used it. You’d have better luck trying to send a note in a bottle. Even if they do check voicemail regularly, it may have been lost in a stream of other messages.
Yep, seems like they could have mentioned it then. But as you say, it’s possible they figured others may have already let you know. And as another pointed out, wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t get the message either. Lots of stuff happens here.
Another scenario is that they are still buried up to their necks on settling the estate too. There is so much to settle up with on any reasonable size estate, that you continue to stay busy many months afterwards. We are still covered up between me and two siblings and a half a year has passed. My mom was also taking care of my elderly dad who has Alzheimer’s, and now I have him every other month at my place.
Thank goodness we get along, and mom had everything in order, but there’s a home to sale, get it ready for market, car to sale, all the contents in the house to sell either through garage sales or auction. And quite a bit of paperwork with banks, insurance people, tracking down this form or that, this legal document or that, which again, mom pretty much had it all in order, but it still seems to never end. And dad is a full-time job all by himself.
Since you figured them as good friends, this is the sort of thing you could bring up some day at the appropriate time, and that you wished somebody had told you, and tell them your message went unnoticed. I doubt they will go drama queen on you, and it wouldn’t surprise me they ease your concerns.
I feel sorry for your pain you’re describing. Oh, I agree with those who say, with a death in the family and with the vagueries of communication modes today, it was maybe not such a gap in the nature of your relationship with them as you think, but of course it also could be that.
I just know how it feels to be on your end – the sadness and the “left out” part. I think I probably even created that for a few other people when my own mother died.
I have nothing to cheer you up, clearly… These sorts of occurrences and experiences come up regularly in later life.