I'm sorry Barbara

It's really shocking to find out about a friend's death by reading an article in the newspaper. I suppose as people get older, reading the obituaries is one way of keeping track of people we have lost contact with. I'm still a spring chicken though, so I'm not in the habit of reading obituaries. In this case, I learnt about Barbara's death months after the fact, when an article detailing the experiences of the survivor of the plane crash that took Barbara's life emerged.

Barbara was someone I was very close to at one time. I became friends with her through her husband, who I was seeing for naturopathic care. Being single and living in a town where I had moved to for work, I was grateful for the friendship they offered, and I spent a lot of time with them, hanging out in pubs and going on motorbike rallies with them. Then I moved interstate and I only saw him once on a brief trip back. We went out on the bike for a ride and I regret that we got drunk and I went along with something he should have had better sense not to have done.

I went overseas then, but stayed in contact with them during this time. Years later when I moved back to the town where they still resided, I realised that I had changed significantly and no longer shared similar viewpoints about many issues. Meeting them was like being given a different perspective on the old me.

It was interesting too how they both reacted to the changes I had gone through. Barbara was mostly quiet, but her husband was openly critical. It was hard for me because I was already experiencing a lot of criticism from my family at that time, so their response was more of the same.

When I brought the issue up with him, he told me not to be so sensitive and I guess his reluctance to listen to my distress drove me to end our friendship. He was pretty hurt, but left me alone none-the-less. I don't know how Barbara reacted to me ending our friendship. I never spoke to her again.

So now I feel really awful that I never resolved the issue of our differences and never made peace about the drunken episode with Barbara and will never get the chance, because she's gone.