Old

A common question rolling thru my group of friends and peers these days seem to involve our age.  As in, "How could we be old enough to be going thru .....".  Here you would insert things like:  loss of parents, seriously ill children, seriously ill spouses, divorce, etc.  It seems like everywhere we turn these days, we know someone who is going thru something catastrophic and unimaginable.  However, when it is happening to someone you are close to, it suddenly becomes imaginable and frightening.  In the past twelve months or so, I've had friends go thru all the above.  A dear friend is in the finals weeks before his divorce is final.  I've known him since I was a preteen and his wife since I was a newlywed.  They were our first"couple friends".  We have watched their beautiful daughters grow and cheered all their life accomplishments.  The finality of the relationship was not a surprise to anyone but still unsettling to me as I got my first taste of "pick a side".  Of course, I chose him.  He's been my buddy and pal forever.  There was no real choice.  Although I'd grown fond of her over the years and we had even done some social things without the husbands along, she was never a better friend to me than he was.  There is void left in our lives as we will never have another party or gathering involving all four of them again. 

My best friend has been thru the ringer the past eight years and that is putting it mildly.  First her husband quit his job suddenly without a backup plan.  Before he could find gainful employment, his appendix ruptured and there were some pretty serious complications involved.  The time he was unemployed before and during recovery, almost sunk them in debt but he rebounded and started his own business.  Suddenly their life was turning around and he was making silly money.  Then they found out her daughter had Crohn's.  Devastating life change for everyone.  You would think that would be the worst of the story but it's not.  Then her husband was arrested and convicted of selling stolen goods.  It seems his amazing new business was not so amazing afterall. He was receiving his merchandise from a guy who was not on the up and up.  I guess I will never know the whole story or even the true story about his guilt in the matter but it doesn't really matter - all that matters is that his screwup turned my best friend's world upside down.  So you must be thinking that having your husband convicted of a felony, losing almost all your wordly possessions in the process and hanging on by a mental thread must have been the worst thing to happen to her?  Nope, several months ago she made the decision, with doctor's urging, to have surgery performed on her daughter to remove the Crohn's infected portion of her intestines hoping to finally find a way to reverse or stop this ever aggressive disease that was making her daughter sicker by the day.  The relatively "simple" laproscopic procedure turned into a medical nightmare that involved 3 procedures and 22 days in the hospital.  The recovery process has been difficult and I watched my best withdraw even more to herself than ever before.  In the years since she's been married to this man, I've watched everything about her change and it is difficult to watch.  Her personality has not only changed, her beliefs seem different, her way of thinking about almost everything has changed.