I Don't Understand

John with the look. Barcelona 1999

Castle in Ibiza

 

As I stood at the altar of Immaculate Conception Church looking out at our assembled friends while delivering John’s eulogy, I noticed that our friend Brad, sitting next to his partner Thom looked furious.  Interestingly, the more I spoke the angrier he seemed to get and by the end of my fifteen minute remembrance Brad was undone to the point where he couldn’t sit still.  Yet despite his agitation, Brad and Thom showed up after the memorial for the reception at my home and as they departed they promised to stay in touch.

We’d been casual close friends, dinner at one another’s homes, short vacations together to Ocracoke Island for the weekend, pool parties at our place and in the final year of John’s life; before he got sick an amazing European vacation that included renting a castle on the island of Ibiza. Once Johns was sick, I don’t recall Brad and Thom being around much. They visited when John had turned for the worst and was comatose in the hospital. In his final weeks at home they didn’t stop by until the night he died, then Brad came alone, perhaps Thom was traveling.

In between Spain and John being diagnosed with lymphoma; we had separated. The stress of renovating a one hundred year old home, building a business, John’s travel schedule and mutual immaturity and changing life perspectives had driven us apart.  Perhaps on some level John knew that he was sick and needed me to leave for a while so that we’d be strong for the fight for his life. There is a photo of John in Barcelona where he looks aware of something coming down the pike.  This is an assumption. It’s something that John and I never talked about. We just hadn’t had time. When he and I separated I was ready to move on for good.  I think John was ready too; he’d started courting a housemate of Brad and Thom’s; I imagine if John had lived that courtship might have gone somewhere.

Brad and Thom had decided during my separation from John, who they'd remain friends with. It wasn’t me.  That was ok too, they had been friends with John first and although we got along. I’d always been a little mistrustful of them.  Brad especially had an acidic tongue and wouldn’t bat an eye when it came to dissing or gossiping; even if the brunt were his closes friends or even his partner.  He tended to present as queen bee which is rather ironic because Thom was the steady earner as a scientist. Brad was an artist, very capable but not really driven.  John and Thom were close because they’d worked together. I was the accidental and disposable friend because I was sleeping with John. When that ended so did the friendship in their eyes.

So at the memorial service Brad was furious and then in the heart wrenching years after John died, when I really needed friends, I heard nothing. No cards, no phone calls, no emails, nothing.  It wasn’t until we ran into one another by happenstance years later that the light bulb went on for me. I’d gone out to a bar with some friends, something I just don’t do anymore and Brad and Thom were there. Being adult and in the company of one another we spoke and I was told that they weren’t mad at me.  I found that proclamation odd.  The years of silence meant something right? There was anger and now it had been articulated, but what was it?

I suppose John could have vented to them about all that had gone wrong between us and my verbal painting at the eulogy was rather idealistic and contrary to the reality of our split up. Silly me, but it just didn’t seem appropriate at John’s funeral to go into the details of our split up and all that had gone wrong in our life together. After all he’d just lost his life. I suppose that Brad and Thom expected to participate in John’s service and they weren’t asked.  I included people who were within my line of site at the time.  

In the end, I’ll never know what the answer is. They aren’t part of my life, my true friends are close and have remained close; still it would have been nice to have a few more people around who knew and remember John. It would be nice to have more people close at hand who could reflect and remember aspects of a great guy seen through the kaleidoscope of their perceptions.