We think we know the people with whom we forge deep friendships. However, we only know what our friends choose to reveal. We might discover a greater truth later or even after they die. Then we have a choice: whether to let it shape how we feel about the person.
I’ll call my friend Janet. We met while volunteering in Big Sisters. We were the only four participants who showed up for a scheduled cookie bake, but the church was locked. Janet said, “Let’s bake at my apartment.” A friendship was born.
My husband and I visited Janet in Chicago yearly. We built in a day of work. Janet would describe a project. We would tell her what supplies we would need. Even our children got age-appropriate projects. We all learned together.
In return, Janet would take us to Shakespearean plays, to concerts, to Morton Arboretum, where trees from all over the world are preserved. We would go on picnics—elegantly prepared and packaged sandwiches with wine at an outdoor concert, for example.
Wine was sometimes a part of dinner. We would sit back, enjoy ourselves. Eventually Janet met James. They were together for several years.
Some years after Janet and James broke up, two visits to Chicago stood out. One visit was with a friend, Charlotte, a mutual acquaintance. Janet, Charlotte, and I were going to an outdoor concert with the usual picnic dinner. Janet drove us downtown. After the concert, she fell. While Charlotte and I scrambled to get her up, I got a whiff of something she seemed to exude through her pores. I said, “Janet, you’ve had too much. Give me your keys. I’m driving.” She handed them over.
The second visit was with our mutual friend Susan. That visit had a strange vibe. Janet had trouble parallel parking at the Metra station. I took over, parked the car, then we boarded the Metra. Once we arrived at Millennium Park, I visited its reflective Bean, then went back to the concert area on a hillside-turned-amphitheater.
I remember seeing Janet in the distance as I approached. She held her water bottle while rocking back and forth, heel-to-toe. She wore tan capris and a cream-colored sweater with red horizontal stripes that contrasted with her dark brown, pageboy-cut, chin-length hair. The three of us sat listening to the concert. When it ended, Janet got up, staggered forward, and fell, her closed water bottle rolling away. We got her up and into a chair. She wasn’t hurt. I found her water bottle. On a hunch, I opened the top and sniffed it, then tasted and spit it out. Holding the opened bottle where she could see it, I said, “Janet, give me your keys. Once we get off the Metra, I’m driving home.” She looked at the opaque water bottle, back at me, handed over the keys, struggled to her feet, and walked unsteadily toward the Metra, one hand on the handrail. Susan asked, “What just happened?” “I’m driving us home,” I said. “I can’t let her drive.” Susan stared at me in disbelief.
We saw Janet about once per year. I didn’t connect the dots, but on some level, I knew.
Last year we scheduled a visit, but she wasn’t there. Somehow in a city of 3 million people, we tracked her down. She had fallen in a parking garage, was taken to one hospital, then to another. After the DT’s ended, she was hospitalized for several months.
This last time, she fell in her apartment. Her sister, Nancy, was alarmed when she couldn’t reach Janet by phone. Nancy had fire-and-rescue break the door down. This time Janet was hospitalized for about a month and a half. Then she died.
Nancy, executor of Janet’s estate, could not come, but managed what she could from her home. My husband and I drove from Virginia to clean out Janet’s apartment and deal with multiple, challenging executor functions.
During her hospitalizations and after her death, I struggled with Janet’s greater truth with help from friends who had experience with this disease. I chose to love Janet for the good times we had, but also to accept her disease and how it had changed her.
We believe that she: chose to do this to herself; often cut back when we visited; chose us as friends because we were dependable and loved her unconditionally; and knew we would help if the need arose.
We only really know what our friends and family choose to reveal. When we found a greater, distinctly unpalatable truth, we chose to love the person but still accept that her outcome resulted from her own free choices.
In our grieving, this seemed to be the only way to move forward.
About the Author: Linda Lemery llemery@gmail.com welcomes reader comments. The names in this piece have been changed for anonymity.
