You had my number and my address; why didn't you tell me he was dying?!!

The BBQ Pit
1

I’ll try to keep this short.

I live in NY now, but I had a friend in my prior place of residence, someone I knew for 5 or 6 years. We were as close as two friends can be, like brothers - always hanging out together, always supporting each other. However, as the relationship progressed, he started to deteriorate mentally, throwing fits, refusing to work, smoking/drinking to excess, but it never occurred to me that it was anything other than a big life change, and I never really found it appropriate for me to pry into his financial affairs, nor did the type of relationship we had make “girl talk” (like feelings and emotions) so easy to discuss. For most of those years, he never, ever crossed me, and he was very, very loyal.

Then, one day, his anger eventually did turn on me when he began throwing a fit about something I said and he shouted at me in front of someone else, “You LOSER!”. I cut off the relationship altogether at that point. Sometimes I question if that was the right thing to do? Did I over-react, or not?

Two years ago at Christmas, when I found myself back in town, I went to our hangout, and just innocently asked our always-frosty bartender, “So, where’s Paul?” After a moment of silence, he responded, “Paul died.”

:eek: “How? What happened?” “He died of AIDS.”

Neither Paul, his roommate nor any of our mutual acquaintances had ever told me that he had AIDS (I suppose that sort of thing is information you guard very closely). He died three years after I moved to NY. I had absolutely no idea he was dying. No on called to tell me. No one thought to write me a letter. Nothing. Not even after the fact. I found out about his death from the bartender.

Paul’s roommate had moved on, and I was able to track him down, but he never responded to my e-mail inquiry about the events of Paul’s passing. As I think about it now, I’m fine with his non-response. He had my number, knew where I lived, and no one thought that I would care to know that one of my best friends ever was dying. I like to think being that cold and thoughtless would take effort for someone like myself, but then again, who knows unless they are faced with such a situation? I will never have a chance to say goodbye to Paul, and I probably won’t wrap up any loose ends with his roommate - what could I possibly say? Thank you for not telling me Paul was dying. :mad:

There’s a lesson in this somewhere, which is why I wanted to post it here, for the benefit of the members here.

2

maybe he didn’t WANT anyone to know he was dying. When my last husband was diagnosed with cancer I wanted to call his best friend of 20 years who lived in another state. He was adamant about me NOT telling ANYONE except my mother. He didn’t want anyone to come over just because they knew he was dying. After he passed I opened a box of letters that he asked me to mail after his demise and there was a letter to his friend explaining why he didn’t let him know. Yes he was hurt and angry. He had every right to be but he was eventually ok with it because he realised that it was Andys way of doing things. My condolences for your loss. I hope you can forgive him AND the people that didn’t tell you. Peace to you my friend.

3

Thank you, pencilpusher. I can understand it from the his side, too, if he was thinking along those lines.

BTW: “Paul” is my friend, and he was ALWAYS at the bar, which is why I asked about him at the bar (yes, I tried calling him at home, no response - phone disconnected or something)! Leave it to me to leave something as confusing as that right in the middle of my OP.

4

Maybe they thought that you didn’t want to be contacted, since you “cut off the relationship”?

5

nisosbar some terminally ill patients don’t like their friends to know because people treat them “differently” and what they really need is the comfort of “business as usual.” So they get a little weird about telling people.

Also, breaking the news to the people reinforces the scary thought that “yes, this is really happening to me!” If you had to be notified, then it was all the more “real.”

In my father’s last year of life, when we took him grocery shopping, he would buy everything in bulk. And I mean bulk! Like 6 months supplies of canned goods! He would insist “of course, I need this much” (when there really was no hope that he’d be around for six more months.)

It may be that your dear friend kept insisting “No need to tell Nisosbar yet. There’s still time. There’s still plenty of time to tell Nisosbar. Don’t tell Nisosbar yet! Wait a bit longer. There still time.”

6

I suppose the lesson to be learned is really mine: pride and self-righteousness, in the form of severing a relationship with a loyal friend due to a single indiscretion, was my downfall.

Though I could not have known that he was dying (his symptoms, if any, were undetectable to me and, as I said, there was no revelation from anyone in our circle), had I simply overlooked his outburst or just shrugged and said, well, that’s just Paul, I would have had a chance to say goodbye and I would feel good that he died with peace of mind as to our friendship.

Sadly, I will live the rest of my life unable to amend anything with him. Additionally, I understand that his death was a painful one, which makes me feel about as bad as possible. :frowning:

Okay, thanks for listening, folks - don’t mean to be a downer, so we can move on…

7

Don’t feel bad. If you two were as good of friends as you say you were, a part of him probably thought he was doing well to spare you from the pain of watching him die. If he was angry with you for ending the friendship, all of that probably dissipated before his death. Friendships grow and change, and sometimes they end. But my guess is that he still knew that you cared about him - even if friends don’t talk, you still know these things.

Ava

8

One of my best friends died of AIDS, and chose to keep the fact that he had it from me and my wife. A mutual friend “leaked” his condition to us, with the understanding that we were not to let him know that we knew, about the same time we figured out that the past few years of “bad colds” and “bronchial infections” had to be more than they seemed. He had always been a bit of a hypochondriac, which had helped in the cover-up. I respected his wishes and never let on that we knew, but I always wondered why he didn’t want us to know. He died while we were out of town on an extended trip, and his parents took him back to Ohio for burial before we got back. A bunch of us had a memorial service at a SF convention, and a drawing of him that someone had done hangs in our living room.

I remember being very resentful at the time that he didn’t seem to feel he could trust me with the truth of his condition. But I finally decided that it was his decision to make, and mine to accept.