I Burned Your Condolence Card
Insight hit me tonight in the most unlikely place and a parallel ran in my mind to you. So I'll tell you all about it in the hope that putting my life in words and all my thoughts about our friendship's end in perspective, will help me gain some much needed peace.
It started innocently enough. Yours was the last condolence card that came in the mail. Ironic it was, as I saw it at the time, a supportive card that absolutely was not. I read it just once. And then I threw up. The blame in those words made me so sick I couldn't contain it any longer.
I was speechless. I suppose not literally because I did take the time to send a message to a friend and ask if I misunderstood the sentiment. I couldn't bring myself to read it more than the one time, being not one for throwing up just for the fun of it. I asked another friend to read it. She didn't puke on me thank goodness. She wasn't exactly speechless either. Got to hear some choice words about it though and you know what- I really didn't misinterpret your meaning.
It read to her like it read to me: You think I killed my son and you were the psychic that knew it was coming but couldn't prevent it.
In the months before our due date, I was frustrated that after twelve years of friendship you continued to argue with me about my life, about my evidenced based practice and our plans for birth. I was confident, self-assured and invincible and I was not about to listen to you. I'd done all the debating and discussion with a dream team of high-risk doctors and my midwife and between my family and my team our decision was set.
It was a shock though hardly a surprise to get your card then, months later when my world was rocked by death. I didn't know how to answer you immediately, how to resolve this anger and venom that I wanted to spew, especially knowing that I wanted the last word. I held out on my commentary, wanting to be the bigger person and taking your feelings in stride until this moment, three months later, when I had the right vantage point.
This is where my parallel ran tonight: sitting next to my two-year old daughter at dinner. She was on our bench, at our counter-height table, and she is at this wonderful stage in life when she is an absolute clutz. Her follies make for some memorable moments though nothing more than a few bumps and bruises always peppered with a quite a bit of wailing and tears. She had brought up a little stool, attempted to sit on it, yes on top of the bench, so that she was taller than the table.
The age old mommy warning sprang up,"Don't do that; you're going to get hurt."
I didn't stop her though, I waited it out. I'm nothing if not a life-lesson teacher...and some times that means learning things the hard way. I didn't intervene; I waited for her to fall. I knew what could happen, the sequence of events unfolded before my mind's eye and I sighed. She surprised me this time, balancing nicely on the stool on the bench, towering for a moment "So Big" and when she had gotten her fill, she gracefully dismounted. We all know how it might have gone differently, how she could have toppled from her heights of triumph, bumping and jostling into hard edges on her way down, and obtaining the obligatory bruises and tears. And she would have looked to me, her ever supportive mother who would have picked her up, sighed again and said, "I told you that was going to happen." I would have comforted her and snuggled her close, knowing how it hurts to fall so far, but I would have been annoyed that she hadn't heeded my warning and stopped before climbing so high.
I know now why you sent your card. Your "I told you so" was crushing and spiteful but such an obvious part of human nature that it was hard to be surprised. It's interesting now to look at it a few months later, in a totally different light.
I think maybe you were trying to be supportive then, when you were predicting how I would fail. Months before my son died, your warning was timely, though hardly psychic. It could have gone the way my daughter's climb did tonight- an absolute success- and you would have been glad for us, grateful that we didn't get hurt as you'd worried. You'd have eaten humble pie when I shoved my win in your face and I would have gloated as is also human nature. But lucky you, you were right in your negative outlook, that my plan blew up in my face. And unlucky me that instead of sighing, slowly walking to our side to help us pick up the pieces of our now shattered lives to comfort us, you opted out.
I understand it now and I'm not as angry as I was. I get tired of watching my children, heck even my family and friends, make the same decisions over and over again, despite having made these mistakes myself and having already shared with them our experience.
But I am nothing if not a life-lesson teacher...and this time, I am the learner. As much as I hear the warnings others issue, sometimes it pays to pave my own way in this world. This time it cost me dearly: a priceless son was lost to me forever...and because of that, I have also lost a precious friend.
In my anger over your blame, I burned your condolence card. I couldn't read the anguish and regret more than once and your tone scalded me instantly. I can't change decisions made, I can't turn back time, and I wouldn't save your sentiment to reopen the wounds on my slowly healing heart, so I burned it in the hope that doing so would give me peace. It hasn't. Maybe this perspective on it will give that to me instead and I can wash away the ashes of our finished friendship, finally accepting its fiery end.
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