There isn’t really a nice way to put it, some people suck. Some are just dicks.
Maybe they are decent people in other areas, but when it comes to the loss of your child, some people that you thought you could count on, will disappoint you more than you could have ever imagined.
A couple of weeks after Michael passed away we lost a dear friend. She was in her 80’s and went peacefully. We weren’t sure if we’d go to her funeral because the timing was so close to our son’s funeral, and we just didn’t have the strength. Looking back, I don’t remember if we had even returned to work by this point.
We decided to go. At the funeral, a mutual friend comes up to me and said “we messed up and I’m sorry.” Huh, I thought. “We didn’t attend your son’s funeral and we should have been there for you.”
Honestly, being in that numb section of my world, I can’t say that I knew he wasn’t at the funeral. But once he told me, I was pissed. And yes, over time you do realize who was there and who wasn’t. So his telling me didn’t change my realizing he wasn’t there, it just changed when I realized it.
Now to put things into perspective, I had known this guy for over 20 years, we lived about 7 miles from each other, for most of that time we were in the same church group. We weren’t best buds, but there was a connection.
I have no idea which cigar I was smoking that night, but damn, I’m sure it was a good night. Fire, cigar, drink. I actually don’t care which cigar it was, because I’m sure it was good.
The thing is, when you are in your lowest spot, you do find out who your friends are, and you find out what your friends are made of. Some of my friends couldn’t talk about me losing my son. Some of my friends called regularly. Some of my friends reached out while others never did. The truth is that I don’t really judge or begrudge someone for how they react. They have lives too, and I respect that their life doesn’t have to revolve around mine.
However, I also don’t feel obligated to mince words about people who abandon you in your time of need either. That guy, the one at the funeral, the one who felt the need to unburden himself about not reaching out to me and my family in our darkest hour. That guy is a dick.