Emotional Night
Last night, a friend who I haven't seen in more than 15 years came to dinner. She was at one time my dearest friend here in Whitehorse. Alan and her son were born only weeks apart - I have many photos of the happy times we had together. Then she and her husband broke up, and she started to do things that I didn't understand and that hurt me a lot. For instance, she didn't even come to visit me in the hospital when I had Iris, and I so desperately wanted to show my new baby girl off to her.
Shortly after that, she left town, and we lost touch. When she called several days ago to say she was in town (she's here for her son's graduation), I was a bit nervous about seeing her. I realized I was still hurting from things that had happened all those many years ago. In any event, she came last night and throughout the evening I finally heard her story, and it's a heartbreaking one.
I won't go into all the details, but she ended up in California married to a man who nearly killed her, took her money, and left her destitute. She had to move back to her parents in Ontario, go on welfare, and she's been struggling to put her life back together ever since. She's now married to a man who clearly loves her, she's gone back to school and got her Masters, and while she'll never be the woman I knew, she's somehow made peace with everything she's been through.
This morning, I'm a bit of a basket case, trying to process everything she told me last night. I wish I had known. I wish that I had been there for her in those times when she felt there wasn't a single person on this earth that cared for her.
6:24:30 AM 
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