Funeral for a Friend....

I farewelled one of my oldest and dearest friends last week. She was farewelled by a church full of friends and family (I commented that I doubted my funeral would attract as many! ) she was a good person and she died at the hand of someone who had professed to love her.

We met at university in 1989 both keen to recommence our nursing studies which we had started in the old hospital system but for different reasons both discontinued, however the passion for nursing was always there and it bought us together.

We were like chalk and cheese and we were a living example of "opposites attracting"  we became firm friends, and she became part of our extended family, so much so that my friend was a Doula http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doula  for my sister while was  in labour having her twin boys.

She revelled in my family of 4 children and never came empty-handed to the house knowing that there were 4 little  children who eagerly anticipated her arrival always with a treat,   usually something sweet! After university our careers took different directions but we stayed in touch just as much as we had during university, probably even more so, as life dealt its challenges for us to overcome over the years.

She was a very intelligent woman, indeed it was our friendly rivalry that was the cornerstone of our friendship, we were always competing to see who got the most distinctions, the best reports for their work etc etc. She went on to do midwifery, and a masters in public health which saw her undertake work with the most disadvantaged and marginalised people in our society and she loved it!

I used to laugh at her to get a real job like the rest of us, you know a 9-5 job, but the life of regular routine was not for her, it would interfere with her belly dancing class, visiting family and friends and of course the travel, she loved to travel be it in Australia or overseas.

Many of her friends wanted to know how such a intelligent, beautiful and kind woman did not have someone else in her life, she used to say she was too fussy, or not interested but I suspect that like all of us she secretly wanted someone to share her life with.

Then she was introduced to "him", I am admitting a bias here already as I did not like him from the first time I met him, but I was prepared to tolerate him if it made my friend happy.  And it did... for a while and then things, no she began to change.

She was never available for our "girl time" lunches or visits, because "he" might have a job or didn't have a job and she would have to look after him, indeed,  he never had a job the 7 years he was with my friend, she supported him the entire time, although he was introduced to her as "financially indepandant" ( from the .com era supposdly ).

The visits became less and the emails and phone messages dropped off over the last 2 years. She could not come to my Big Event birthday because "He" might have a job and they couldn't get away for the night! This was not the woman I knew of old, she would have come as a strong independent woman and proud to it!

During the last 12 months I spoke with my friend about 4 times always with "him" present, it seemed she was not allowed to be alone with me (or probably anyone), we wondered what she she continued to see in him. He was a man with no past, no family, and we were never told his surname or any anecdotes from his past:  the story given was "he had a falling-out with his family and does not have anything to do with them".  She came from a large, loving European migrant family and this was an anathema to their culture.

Recently I saw a visible crack appear in the relationship, my friend had inherited some money and wanted to buy a little place down the south coast but "he" wanted a place on the north coast. We spent a day with them showing them places around us,  but for "him" it was not right, even though my friend enthused widely about the places we showed them.

As regular readers know we went overseas for Christmas, but I did manage to get my Christmas cards out to those I knew I would not see for a while. This included my friend who was always the first one to send the annual Christmas card, we did not get one before we left so I expected one to be waiting in the mail box when we returned.  There was no card last year.

My friend was found dead in her home a couple of weeks ago,  in a manner that does not bear thinking about. "He" rode a motorbike into the path of an oncoming truck a couple of days later, and was killed.

I have been pondering the whole thing over the last couple of weeks and wish that I had said or done something about the relationship earlier. I heard from one of her family she had been trying to leaving the relationship for a while, but she obviously couldn't tell her friends, and it hurts me to think that she did not want to let people know that her relationship was not the picture perfect one she tried to present to us all.

I have a lot of wishes and a wish list  in the last bit of this post:

I wish I had said to my friend, are you ok?

I wish I had told her of my reservations about her partner

I wish I had questioned him more about his past and hopefully got an insight into his character more

I wish I had rung or visited my friend after we got home from holidays

I wish she had told me she was trying to leave the relationship:  why didn't she, afraid to admit a failed relationship?

I wish that all of us make sure our friends/family are in healthy happy relationships and look out for warning signs and speak up if we fear otherwise.



I wish she was still here!