Stuffing

Broken friendships

I thought I would start this blog with a series on friendships that I had lost. Hoping for closure. And it did help writing about Mahmoud. (Though I didn't explain why I called him Dr. Mah. He didn't really believe in himself that he would get his degree and so it was a kind of funny/ faith thing, that I always called him Dr. Mah believing he could do it. He had just started working on his doctorate when he died)

Thursdays I work at home and I was feeling tired, so I went to lie down for a few moments and I had some old memories come back, thus another entry. I think as we go through life, it is inevitable that friendships will end as you grow differently, your friendships will grow with you. Ones that are no longer beneficial are left behind. However, some friendships are broken prematurely be it by death, or stupid stuff. And while I have let them go, I don't think I've ever done anything to get closure.

This next one I do have some closure on, but anyway.
This would have been 1992. I had a friend named Candace who went to my Church. She lived in Odessa and I'd go out to her house sometimes and hang out with her. I wasn't terribly close to her, but we were the only 2 girls about the same age in the Church. As time went on, I got closer to Kim and Janice who were about 10 years older, but we were better fits for our personalities.
Anyway, that's the background for the story.
In 1994 Candace moved to Toronto and her mom and dad split up. Her dad, Glen stayed at the Church but the mom left. Our Church was pretty small and pretty close. We did lots of stuff together but a lot of them lived in far flung locations like Deseronto, etc. and the Church was on Gardiners road, so there was a lot of driving involved. I didn't have a car at that time, so I needed rides to these gatherings. Most of the time Janice drove me as she lived close by me, but she's a nurse and she worked some odd shifts so sometimes she couldn't drive me. Glen and I were doing the tape ministry together. And he needed to get out of the house a lot, so sometimes he would drive me. We went to a bbq at Jon & Lindas in Deseronto and we went to something in Picton. I was conscious of the pain he was in and I tried to be a good friend. He took me to his work and introduced me to his coworkers. But I really didn't think anything of this, because I was his daughters age, really. It seriously never crossed my mind that he would think anything other than friendship. Seriously. But then. And my mind goes blank here. Either he told me he had feelings for me, or someone else did. I don't remember. Just the shock. I was completely blindsided. How could I not have seen this?
But the kicker is this. Our Pastor, from the pulpit, openly blamed me for everything because he apparently had been counselling Glen and this was how he saw it. Can you imagine my jaw on the floor? I felt terrible. I avoided Glen like the plague. Difficult in a small Church, but possible. It was the worst feeling that your Pastor had so little faith in you.
I could have stopped going to the Church, but I never considered it.
Not one person from the congregation ever spoke to me about it, now that I look back on it. Though I did talk about it with Kim. Not exactly the sort of thing you can bring up in casual conversation anyway.
I think Glen stopped going to the Church in 1996 and I didn't see him again until 2003 or 2004, when Myron, James and I ran into him with his second wife in Harvey's. She seemed to be such a nice lady and I liked her instantly. I was happy for him. She was also more age appropriate!

posted by Aphra @ 10/19/2006 03:34:00 PM