It has been two months since my father died. Lots of strange things happen when someone dies. Throughout the whole ordeal I have just felt odd. That is not clearly articulated, but it is all I can come up with. December was bizarre with the constant stream of holiday cards and sympathy cards coming at the same time.
One night after work I got the mail and was sorting through said assortment of sympathy and holiday cards. A card with half a return address jumped out at me. There was no name, but I knew that address. It was a friend with whom I had parted ways with 13 years ago. We had a falling out of sorts. It does not matter now. Slowly I opened the card. She had heard about my father's passing and sent me a card. In the card she had written a great deal about how sorry she was to hear about my father. It was overwhelming to get this card from someone who had seen so much of my father when we were growing up. It made me think about what has happened in our lives in the past 13 years. What we don't know about each other and how we have moved on to our own worlds.
Five weeks have past since I received that card. Tonight I learned that this same old friend lost her mother Sunday. I am in shock. The sadness I feel for her family is indescribable. I have some lovely memories of her mother and feel terrible for her father. I am taken aback by the timing of both incidents. How do two people who were friends for so long and then not, lose parents in the same time period. It is coincidence? Is it fate opening a door to reconciliation? Do I reach out? I know, given how things have happened, that I will send a card? Do I offer further support or the willingness to listen. I don't know. I am overwhelmed with sadness.
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