Grieving someone who hasn’t died

Grief is a funny old emotion.

It’s easy to grieve someone who has passed away. It’s expected, it’s normal, and there’s plenty of books and support articles to help someone go through it. What to do with their belongings, how to treasure their memories, how to accept that they’re no longer in your life.

But what about when that person still lives?

Whether it’s a parent, a child, a relative, or a best friend, sometimes we grieve people who have left our lives but not necessarily left this world.

In my case, I lost my best friend of 10+ years, and although it’s been 2 years since it happened, I still find myself struggling with the loss on occasion. I’ve never spoken about it publicly, or shared it with many of my friends, because talking about it feels bitchy, or like I’m trying to score points or garner attention.

And yet, by keeping it to myself and trying to be the bigger person by not speaking about it, it feels like I’m invalidating my own feelings about it, as though I’m brushing it off and pretending as though it didn’t hurt and it doesn’t matter … when in reality, it hurt(s) very much and it mattered very much.

Recently, thanks to a post on Facebook by Tanya Hennessy, I’ve learned that many women have been through a similar experience in their life — and most of them have felt the same way, that it’s not okay to grieve or talk about it, for fear of “spreading rumours” or “being a bitch”. So I wanted to speak about it, and be open about it, because it should be something we can talk about. We should be able to grieve the loss of a friend, and not feel that we’re being portrayed as a bitch, or trying to score points.

My best friend and I met in a non-traditional sense — an online forum for a band we both loved. We didn’t actually meet in person for many years, but our friendship strengthened as we realised we had more in common than just music. When we finally found ourselves living in the same city eventually, we were inseparable.

Coincidentally, we had many similar physical characteristics and would often be mistaken for twins — it didn’t help that we inadvertently would dress alike quite often (at one point, one of our favourite bands thought we were the same person until they actually saw us together and realised their mistake)

We wouldn’t go a day without speaking via text message, and most days there’d be a phone call too (if not multiple). We shared the big moments and the little; from what we had for breakfast, to the latest gossip of our respective workplaces, to the cute boy we might have spotted on the train.

She was the person I turned to for everything, and I was the person she turned to. We planned our futures together. She’d be my bridesmaid, I’d be hers. We’d live in the same cities, with our future husbands and families, and go to as many live gigs as we could.

Our friendship survived its fair share of highs and lows — relationship breakdowns, several moves interstate (her back to her hometown, me back to mine), and yet we always made the effort to remain close. Even when we lived apart, we would still see each other several times a year.

We both struggled with similar personal issues, and we shared things with each other that we wouldn’t dare speak about with anyone else. We helped each other through our lowest of lows, and we were there to celebrate through our highs.

One day though, she stopped replying to my text messages and calls, with no explanation or warning. One day she was there, and then suddenly she was not.

This was two years ago, and to this day, I still don’t know why. I have re-read the text messages leading up to that moment over and over, and cannot identify any trigger point or event that might have caused her to want to cut off contact. There were no other events that I can pinpoint that might have led to it.

One day we were best friends, the next we were strangers.

At first, I thought she must have just been busy, then I was concerned that something might be wrong, and eventually I realised that it was just me that she wasn’t speaking to. My messages were unanswered, and she didn’t pick up my calls. Then she blocked me on all social media accounts.

I grieved the friendship like the loss of a relationship — as if one person suddenly packed up their life and walked out the door without a look back, without an explanation.

With a relationship though, your best friend and your support network crowd around you to support you and help you. They call you, send you messages, take you out to distract you, and do their best to get you through it.

When it’s your best friend that you’ve lost, it’s different. Mutual friends can’t help but feel awkward — they either take sides, or they fade into the background. You find yourself very alone, wondering what happened, and why, or how.

I was lucky that I had other non-mutual friends in my network who helped to support me through this, but I can only imagine how difficult it would be for someone to go through this where their best friend and group of friends are all intertwined.

After a year or so of not having this friend in my life, I thought it might be time to reach out and see if I could understand what had happened, and perhaps salvage some sort of friendship. I understood it wouldn’t be what it was, but I also wasn’t ready to completely throw away 10+ years of my life.

I called her out of the blue one night, and to my surprise, she answered. We spoke on the phone for a while, and tiptoed around the reason for our distance; instead, we shared what we had been doing, and caught each other up on our lives.

For perhaps a week or two, things felt like they might be okay again. We would message every few days, and talk about the most mundane of things, but also share how our jobs were going, and talk about other aspects of our lives. I had a bit of hope — maybe we could grasp back something of a friendship, even if it wouldn’t be a bestfriendship?

But then, one day, the messages stopped. No warning, no reason, just silence.

Once again, I went into a tailspin as I tried to understand why. I re-read the messages and conversation, trying to pick out the moment it went wrong. I tried to figure out if I’d said something, if I’d been too forward, ‘too much’, something that might indicate why she’d stopped talking to me again.

But there was nothing. Nothing at all.

So I continued on with my life. What else was there to do? I fell in love, I lost my job twice, I found a new job twice, I picked up new hobbies, I made new friends, I moved house, I experienced a global pandemic. But all the while, in the back of my mind, I continued to wonder — what happened?

Perhaps I’m a sucker for punishment, perhaps I don’t learn my lesson, but a week ago, I thought I would reach out again. I think the pandemic has taught everyone a few lessons this year, including the importance of family and friends. Maybe that’s why, or maybe I just still couldn’t shake the ‘not knowing’. I don’t know.

Whatever the case, whatever the reason, I sent my ex-best friend a message on Facebook Messenger, once again asking ‘why’. This time, I had no expectations of friendship. I had no desire to become friends with her, and get hurt again — I’d been down that path. This time, all I wanted was to know why. What had happened to us? How did we go from being best friends, to complete and utter strangers?

Sadly it seems like I’ll never know; she blocked me entirely from Facebook after seeing the message, with no acknowledgement or response.

So here we are. I won’t try again, it’s clear that there is no point, and no good will come of it.

But the grief doesn’t go away. Like the passing of a loved one, or the breakup of a relationship, the memories are always there.