We all have gone through the emotions of losing someone to death, but I do find it harder to say goodbye to someone in life. Maybe I am just a sentimental sod or a fool. All I know is that when something happens to cause a good friendship to break up, it is harder on me than putting someone to rest.
Not having a particularly good relationship with my older brother or father, I have always wanted that special friend whom I can share my experiences with (good and bad), ask advice, share a joke or just to have a beer with after a tough day at work. Yet, no matter how hard I try it always seems like life, destiny, karma, or whatever you want to call it, has a different plan for me.
There have been a few friends that have not lived to see this day, and of course there have been those people whose life paths just turn off from yours. When you outgrow each other it is one thing and you move on in life, but how do you carry on if you don’t know what happened?
Recently I lost a very good friend of mine for a reason I do not know. What is true, however, is that inside me a piece has died. That just might be the reason why it takes longer to heal: that person leaves with a piece of you never to return it, whereas when someone passes on, that piece somehow makes it back with a piece of the one you lost.
You can argue that if he really was such a good friend he would have come to face me about whatever I have done (I am accepting that I am in the wrong), and I will agree with you. Maybe I should just get over it. However, if there is someone that knows more about you than your mother or spouse, it is hard to just forget about that person and carry on as if it never was. Possibly it is even selfish of that person to expect to be forgotten, or is it selfish of me to want a friend to have through thick and thin?
Get a dog if you want loyalty you say. Perhaps. Nevertheless, I do want to believe that I am not the only one who still values a good friendship on a basis of symbiosis and not that of a parasite. My friends all add value to my life, and I believe it is true for them as well. I love to give and I do have a lot to give to my family and friends. But there are too many people who just come to take and it is sometimes the person you least expect it from.
Have we as a society become so self-obsessed that we do not care to use someone and then throw them aside purely because we have run the well dry? Do we care if that person we turn our backs on still needs our support? Next time you want to abandon a friend that has too much baggage for your lifestyle, ask yourself if you are not that person’s pin… keeping the grenade from exploding.
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