Did I Say Something Wrong?

Yes, Mary. You did.

Dear Friends,

I want to tell you that I always try to write from the heart. From a place of kindness. This morning, I published a post that was ugly and mean-spirited. It came from a place of unprocessed pain. When I say that, I’m trying to be as honest as I’m able to be. I owe that to myself, and to you.

As a writer and a human being, I do my best to rise above my worst impulses. Sometimes I fail in small ways. Sometimes I fail spectacularly. That is what I did today.

I disappointed you. That hurts more than anything. I tried to fix it, to scrub the snarkiness through revision. That’s not good enough. I’ll try again.

I’d like to offer some context, and share an experience that doesn’t justify my spite, but may give you some insight into the feelings behind it.

The friend I wrote about in “Butter Sculptures and Baby Goats” was someone I called a friend for sixteen years. She was my co-worker before I retired, and the only person from the company that I remained in contact with. We hadn’t seen each other for some time, but we reconnected last year.

Together, we went to the State Fair. We went out to lunch together. Art exhibits. She invited me to her house for dinner. on Valentine’s Day. It was a sweet gesture. Valentine’s Day is one of the times when I miss my husband the most.

I called her one evening, no special reason. Just to talk. But she started out the conversation with, “Mary, you need help.”

I was shocked. She then proceeded down a laundry list of grievances, some dating back to 2009. Most of them I didn’t remember, or I remembered differently. What she said is not important. But I was stunned.

“You hurt me very much,” she said, repeatedly.

I apologized, although I didn’t know what I was apologizing for.

Then she said, “You talk too much about your dead husband. You need to keep in mind that not all of us have had long, loving relationships like yours.”

That hurt.

And then she asked me how long it had been since my daughter's diagnosis with breast cancer.

“Five years,” I replied.

She said, “So she’s had five good years,” and hung up.

My daughter has not had five good years. She’s had five years of surgeries, chemo, radiation, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, nerve damage, migraines, lymphodema, financial struggles, insurance struggles, pain. More pain. More pain than I can imagine. More everything than I can imagine.

I don’t know why anyone would say what my friend said.

For me, there’s the grief of another lost friendship. I tried for more than a month to write about it for Substack. But mostly, it’s this:

My daughter has not had five good years.

I don’t know why anyone would say she has.

Much love to you, my friends.

Mary xo