“Before” Friends and “After” Friends

At first I thought I never wanted to have any friends who didn’t know Rick. I didn’t want friends who could not somehow recall that I was married to him, that I loved him, and that he died. I’m not really sure why this was so important to me. Perhaps I thought people who did not remember him could not know me. Perhaps a large part of my identity was now defined by this moment in time.

Thankfully, I still have a lot of friends who have known me for many years and who knew Rick and a little about how we felt about one another. These friends provide a sort of empathy that I occasionally need/want. They express a kind of understanding and compassion at having watched me walk this crazy grief journey. They’re a bit of a link to a time when Rick was still alive, to his memory. These are my “before” friends.

Yet as I walk My Second Year, I’m making a lot of new friends who view me through an entirely different lens. These people never knew me as a married woman; they never knew Rick or my love for him. They didn’t watch me learn of his death, lean into grief during the first year, and they didn’t watch as My Second Year emerged. These people know me as an individual, and they know me with more of the rough edges worn off. These are my “after” friends.

These new friends have little sympathy for my grief. They don’t see me as having once been married and as having lost something quite profound. They take me at face value – no history, no brokenness, just me. They also have little compassion or tolerance for any expression of grief. Don’t misunderstand, I am not saying these are not compassionate friends. I am saying they cannot relate to me in the same way my “before” friends can relate to me.

Today I am so glad that I have both “before” and “after” friends. They provide a kind of balance I didn’t know I would need. They also provide a kind of freedom; a freedom to figure out who I am without losing who I was. I want all my friends to know just how important they are not only for the personal relationship we have but also in this bigger picture of how all these pieces of life fit together…every person matters.