Moving On

It has been over a year now that I experienced my heart break, the ending of a friendship.  Fortunately for me this is not something that has happened to me often.  Matter of fact I think this is the first. I mean I have had friendship become less and less until we were more like acquaintances than every being close friends, but I cannot recall another time where one or both of us just called it quits.
I was aquatinted with my friend for around a decade, but didn't become close friends until she received a local job and started coming the mile to my house for lunch. After I started working there as well, she continued having lunch with me on a regular basis since we worked different days. We got very close during those few months and even closer when I discovered I was carrying my last child, Jesse.  She came and helped with the house, helped me get things ready for his arrival.  Being orphaned at 34 and my sister so far away,  I took advantage of her generosity and pretty much grafted her into our family.  She would say things like I was her more than her best friend, I was like her sister. Gullible me believed her
Jesse loved her.  He called her Aunt and looked forward to her visits, small gifts and treats she showered him with. Her family was jealous of our friendship, especially the women.  Her daughter, niece and sister. When I had a disagreement with her sister, as with all things it was made public to her family and my friend willingly got in the middle.  And the family pounced at the chance to sever ties that bounded us together. A few unfriendly emails back and forth with the sister and facebook posts on the walls of the teen girls meant to hurt and embarrass me.  At first I was confused.  I know where my faults were in this situation, but I never would have ended any friendship over something so unimportant. I was hurt and that slowly graduated to anger.  I think I am still angry, but just not as much.  I feel she took advantage of the bad situation.  That maybe my friendship and the love of Jesse was too much pressure for her to continue so it is possible that she took the opportunity to chew her paw off to be free of us without it being her fault.  I think what hurts the most is her rejection of Jesse.  I live many miles away from my sister who would have loved and spoiled Jesse much like a grandmother. And my husbands siblings have little to do with our family.  She had a chance to be a hero in the eyes of my son.

I guess it is best that it happened while he was so young, he could have been hurt terribly if his Aunt Keri left him at age 6 or ten.  He doesn't remember her. Upon my sister's visit anything Aunt Keri had given him he relates to Aunt Karen... I started to correct him, but why? Instead of abandonment by someone he loved his memory is altered to someone who loves him even if it has to be long distance.  I still feel hurt.  I have questioned and tried to answer from my own point of view what happened.  I don't know if I will ever fully understand it.  For today, I suppose this entry is my therapy.  Type it out and hopefully move on from the residual pain. I guess this is me saying goodbye to a friend I hoped I would have forever.  Closing the door on the past and focusing on the people in my life that do love me and it would take more than pressure from jealous kin or a misunderstanding to remove them from my life.  Those who would be willing to fight for our friendship and not with such ease let me go.

Keri and Jesse January 1, 2009