bewildered
yesterday i got confirmation that the letter i had posted here a few days ago had made it to its destination. she thanked me for my timing. the letter had provided comforting reading her first night alone with her son since her husband had walked out on them.
the fucking hell?!
i was flabbergasted. tears came to my eyes as i read her email -- which was so very simple and so very heartbroken. her son (a few months younger than mine) was already asking if he was gone.
i've never met him. i've never seen her son in person. actually, i've only seen my friend in person twice. we used to work for the same firm, but in different offices. we've only spoken by phone a handful of times. it's mostly been email and snail mail for us. but i still count her among my dearest friends. not necessarily one of my closest, but one of my dearest. she's a lovely person who has fallen upon horrible luck more times than i can count. i don't know the daily details of her life or even much of the personal ones, but i can still cry for her. even cam was saddened by the news.
from what i could tell, they had a great life together. they weathered ill health, infertility problems and job issues, housing changes and family weirdness. they sent out photo christmas cards even before their son was born -- featuring them and their dogs. they were a beautiful couple.
what happened? she doesn't know. as far as she knew, everything was fine. in her perception, she wrote, this came out of nowhere.
i told my mother about it. she reminded me that something similar had happened to a family friend. "i didn't even know my marriage was in trouble," the friend had lamented, until the day her husband asked for a divorce so he could marry someone else.
is that what happened here? i guess my friend will tell me in her own time. our friendship has always been about quiet empathy and support, not about the spilling of gory details (don't get me wrong, there's definitely a time and place for gory details). her close friends will hear the details and fury as she works through the abandonment. i will hear the sadness as she figures out what to do next.
until she and her husband either reconcile or finalize their split, i wish her peace and clarity to make the right decisions for her and her son.