Post
by colchar » June 26th, 2010, 1:45 pm
Thanks for all the good wishes everyone (both in this thread and those that arrived via PM).
The funeral was pretty rough. I spent most of my time with his wife and didn't really see too much of his brother or his family as I just wasn't all that comfortable around them due to a bunch of crap that happened over the years. Maybe some background would help explain this. A warning though, I kind of need to vent so this might end up being a little long. My apologies for that in advance.
I became friends with D (the deceased) years ago and, through him, his brother M1 (there are a few people with the initial M so I will give them numbers to differentiate between them) and I became friends and, later, best friends. We were literally inseparable. When D met his wife M2 I, understandably, saw less of him over the years as they were busy starting their life together. I also met a girl and we had a child together so I was busy with my family. When she and I split up (our son was about 18 months old at the time) I temporarily moved back in with my parents and, after a week or so, I was going a little nuts and needed to get the hell out of the house and go drinking so I called D and told him what had happened. I hadn't spoken to him in about six months and hadn't seen him in about a year at that point. But none of that matter to him - he immediately said he would call in sick to work and take me out drinking. I told him not to bother losing the money and he said fine, I finish work at 11pm and I'll be at your place at 11:05 (he worked a couple of blocks from my parent's place). Sure enough, he showed up and took me out for a few hours and we resumed regular contact. He and M2 were to be married soon and, since I had popped back into his life and we had been such good friends, they rearranged their wedding party so that I could be included. His brother M1 and I also became closer at that point and it was then that we became best friends.
Fast forward a couple of years and I introduced M1 to a girl I knew M3 (I told you there were a lot of people with the initial M!). They started dating and it got serious. About 5-6 months later she told me that she was still screwing a married guy she worked with. I have no idea why she thought I wouldn't tell M1 about it but maybe she was under some delusion that my loyalties lay with her rather than him. I immediately told D about this and he said that, if I didn't tell M1, he would. I said I would bite the bullet and proceeded to tell M1 that his girlfriend was screwing some other guy. He confronted her and she somehow convinced him that I was trying to break them up because I wanted her for myself. If that had been the case then why hadn't I asked her out before introducing them as I'd known her for a few years prior to doing that? Also, I didn't find her attractive at all. But whatever, he bought her story and basically fucked me off from that point on. They later married, had a son, and are still together.
Not long after that two other friends of ours, who I had set up on a date and who had ended up marrying each other (he was a university friend and my main golfing buddy while she and I had gone to school together our whole lives), had a baby girl who tragically died at 3 days old. We were all at her funeral and, afterwards, the woman in that relationship hugged me and then proceeded to lose it. Understandable when she had just lost her baby. She had held it together as well as could be expected during the funeral but at that point she broke down completely. Maybe it was because we had been friends for so long, maybe it was because I had introduced them - who knows? The point is she lost it and wouldn't let go of me (her Mom and her husband eventually had to kind of pry her away from me because she had broken down so badly). While she was hanging on to me M3 (my former best friend's girlfriend and the one who had been cheating) piped up with "Why the hell is she hanging on to him?" I heard this and, when the Mom who had lost her baby was pried away from me, I turned around ready to fucking kill her. Seriously, I was gonna explode. My Dad was at the funeral, had heard what M3 had said, and he took one look at my face and said "Don't do it, not here." He was, of course, right and I let the whole thing drop. M1 had a very worried look on his face at the time because he must have been certain that there was no way I could control myself. But control myself I did. But I've never ever forgotten that comment. And I never will. What an absolute fucking bitch. I was so freakin' pissed off that I didn't even go to the wake because she was there and, if I had had a couple of drinks, I wouldn't have been able to hold off so I thought it best that I just not go. A week or two after that funeral I took the husband out golfing and he told me that he had heard the comment as well. He and his wife have had virtually nothing to do with M1 and M3 since then. Although taking him out golfing might seem kind of strange when he had just buried his newborn daughter, his wife called me later to thank me because she said it was the best thing I could've done because I only talked about the baby when he brought her up and, the rest of the time, I just treated him like I had every other time we had gone golfing. She said being treated 'normal' was the best medicine he coulda had at that time as nobody else was acting normally around them (understandable I guess).
A couple of years later I got a call from D and M1's Mom. M1 had told her about me trying to break them up, etc. and his parents, for whatever reason, had bought the story. For some reason D had remained silent through all of this but, on the day his Mom called me, he had snapped over something that his Mom had been bitching about. He was badmouthing M3 in a big way and his mother had asked why he was trying to break them up like I had. At that point he snapped and told his parents what had really happened. His Mom was upset that they had been blaming me and called asking me to come over to the house but my own Mom was in hospital after having cancer surgery so I had other things to do and never did bother going to the house. That phone call was the last time I spoke to either of their parents.
D and his wife M2 and I stayed friends over the years but didn't see much of each other because I was living in another town about an hour away and because he was so sick. Despite that, things were always fine with us whenever we did get together. When D passed away, I spoke to his brother M1 and, as I said earlier in the thread, I told him I would take him out for a couple of hours for a few drinks if he needed to get away and clear his head or whatever. He said he needed that and would let me know when he had an hour or two free so I waited for him to call. He never did call but I chalked that up to him being too busy making arrangements, etc. At the visitation (or maybe it was at the funeral) I mentioned to D's widow M2 that I had made that offer but hadn't heard from M1. She said she'd heard about my offer and that, as far as she knew, M1's wife M3 had played a huge role in his not calling. Basically, he had been allowed out if he needed to get away but not with me. I guess she's still being a fucktard over things that happened well over a decade ago. I decided to be the bigger person and just let it drop. But the whole thing made the visitation and funeral rather uncomfortable for me and, as I said, I spent the majority of my time with D's widow and I think she appreciated that (her sister also sent me a message on Facebook thanking me for keeping her going through the whole thing so I am glad I did spend all my time with her as I guess she really needed it). Actually, I left the visitation a little earlier than planned because the widow, M2, had said that she knew I was uncomfortable and she was fine with my leaving. She said D would've said the same thing so it was alright for me to take off.
As if losing one of my oldest and closest friends wasn't enough, the visitation and funeral were very uncomfortable for me. He would've understood though. Actually, had he been there, he would have told M1 to grow a set of balls and told M3 to go fuck herself but that's another story. It was also kind of strange hearing stories being told during the memorial service in which my name was mentioned because I had played a large part in his life (one, in particular, that was told by his widow's sister really stands out). There was an opportunity for anyone who wanted to to get up and share a memory of him and I wanted to relate the story I mentioned above of how he had been willing to drop everything and help me when I needed him even though I hadn't seen him in about a year (when my son's mother and I split up) as I thought that really spoke to his character and how loyal he was to those he cared about. But I didn't because I was so uncomfortable. Now I kinda wish I had said 'fuck it' and gotten up but it is far too late for that.
So, I lost my best friend years ago because of his wife and she made it rather uncomfortable for me to say goodbye to his brother with whom I was very close. But at least I got to help his widow through everything and I can take some solace in that.
I warned everyone this would be long (it was probably rather confusing too!) and, once again, my apologies for that. For whatever reason, I just felt the need to vent about all of this today.
". . . when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
— Samuel Johnson
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2010 & 2012 CTN NASCAR Fantasy League Champion. No lemurs were harmed in the winning of these titles.
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