The Death of a Friendship

Losing a friendship is often like an actual death, as it needs to be mourned in much the same way. One must process the residual feelings of sadness, regret, anger, pain, loss, etc.

Losing a friend is always a sad thing, and losing a lifelong friend is downright bitterly sad. This happened to me recently, with a friend of over twenty years.

The hows and whys? Let's just say things were said--on both sides--that did permanent damage and could not be forgiven. And when both people feel hurt, and justified, then no repair can happen, as listening ceases at that point (yes, I was just as guilty of this). The other half of the problem is that of change. When one person in a friendship changes, and the other doesn't, well sometimes an impassable chasm is created. This is also known as "growing apart," although this usually occurs over a long period of time. In our case, the change was sudden, perceived as such on both sides, and the change of the other was simply unacceptable. But I suppose there's no point in beating a dead horse.

Yes, the whole thing is so very sad and regrettable, but one must recover and move on. And after such a thing happens, soul searching and personal improvement is mandatory, lest one be destined to repeat history. And I have no intention of letting this happen again. Time for much prayer and reflection.