Hurtful Decisions
by XXXXX
On top of that, my very good friend of 31 years died not so long ago. She was single with no immediate family so her friends were important to her. On the day of the funeral I felt enormous pride for her. She wanted no intervention and wanted to die with dignity. As her disease worsened she made a short list of friends and relatives who were allowed to see her and I was one of the privileged ones. Throughout our lives she had the ability to keep me calm or annoy me with her forceful ideas (part of being single). Many times I felt deeply hurt and offended by her actions but at the end of the day I realised that we were really like sisters and she knew I would still be there. Now that she is gone, I feel lost because I have been removed from her life-the people in her life, the friends we shared and those that were hers that I felt I knew. She become close to my friends as well. They all took time off work to come to the funeral. She confided her last wishes to two strong people, a cousin and her longest friend who also was a little aloof. At the funeral and just after I have felt great pain because her friend has been very cold to me. I tried to believe it was just her dealing with her grief but it is very painful. I feel like she wants to exclude me from being in the group of mourners. I can't understand why. I am not crying and grieving like the others. In the church I had a sense of surreal calmness. Is this normal? There was an item that I had given her still in her house. I expressed to another friend of mine how I would like that as a memory of our times together. It wasn't expensive but it meant something to me. My friend said to mention it to the relatives before they might start throwing things out. What a difficult thing for me to do. I swallowed my pride and took the risk and rang a sweet cousin of hers. They thought it shouldn't be a problem and said that they didn't know from whom the things in the house had come from. Maybe it was a good thing I rang because now they might think of her friends before throwing things out. I felt relieved and satisfied that I had that little memory to hold in my hand. I have been through great emotional and financial loss in the past few years and my friend had been through these experiences with me. I know she was worried about me and tried to give me sensible advice. She told me to rely on the good judgment of my son. Is it normal for me to feel such grief about being excluded at this time. Maybe she didn't love me as much as I thought?
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