Monday, August 10, 2009

Processing

I remember reading bereaved bloggers whose tragedy came before my own talk about how people forget, how friends say inconsiderate things, how time comes, sooner for some, later for others, when people grow tired of accommodating your new self, the one still (or permanently?) sensitive and raw in many places, when they want you to have gotten "over it" already.

And what I thought about that was "not MY friends." Not the friends who dropped everything and came to stand by us. Not the friends who called, and brought food, and asked to see the pictures, and let me talk about how beautiful A was. Not my friends, who, when pregnancy came up as a topic, always and deliberately included my pregnancy with A in these conversations. Surely these people wouldn't forget, or displace, or expect me to revert to my unaffected, my "before" self.

Um... yeah. I am still processing not so much the careless remark from this year's shore trip (it has been apologized for), as the aftershocks of finding out what some of our friends really think. Processing and thinking. Thinking about duty over at Glow, about what we owe others, and what others owe us. Please feel free to stop by and add to the conversation.

3 comments:

Elize said...

We owe each other honesty. and compassion.

ZM said...

I cannot speak for others, but hell, I'd hope that someone tells me when I'm being an idiot.

It's too easy - even when I'm on home turf, talking to someone whose experience marches alongside mine. Because all too often, what resonates deeply, shatteringly for me, is on their list of invisible landmarks. Or vice versa. They don't see it, they won't see it, I strolled past it.

And poof! idiot, foot stuck somewhere around tonsils.

And anyone who can't accept a little tonsil-detangling isn't much of a friend.

Westland Mirrors said...

This is greatt