My Florida friend was married to one of Don’s oldest and best friends and I’ve known her probably thirty years, but we became closer
after Don’s stroke. Anyone who’s gone through living with a severely disabled
person knows there are friends who will run in the opposite direction when a
disability comes into your life and those who will run towards you. She ran
towards us and that’s more uncommon than you might think with family and
long-time friends. Disabilities, divorces and widowhood change the dynamics of
relationships. It's just the way the cookie crumbles. Some friendships fall off the radar, so
treasure the ones that stay put.
Sadly, my friend and her husband are divorced now but we
managed to stay friends with both of them. That wasn’t easy in the beginning because
he went through a short period where he thought we should pick a side.
Thankfully, they found their way back to being on civil terms again and I do my best to not carried tales back and forth between them. It works. But since she moved, I miss her
can-do attitude and the ease in which conversation flows between us. She’s had
a tougher life than mine but you’d never know it, given the way she powers through
adversities. It saddens me that I only get to see her once a year and on
Facebook. Good old Facebook.
Speaking of moving, unless you want to scare yourself out of
moving, don’t ever look at a crime mapping site for the areas where you’re
thinking about moving. I'll look at the crime mapping for where I live two-three times a year and it never turns up
much of anything. This week I was killing time while waiting for my irrigation
guy to show up to do my fall shut-off when I fed the address of a condo community I
like into a crime mapping search box. There’s a registered sex offender living within
the place. Great! I’d be walking the dog and wondering which friendly guy got
caught doing heavens knows what to land him on the list. I kept feeding
addresses into the site and at one point I learned there are over 1,600
registered sex offenders in the greater metropolis which, I guess, isn’t so bad
considering the population but they sure seemed to be ganged up in my old
neighborhood. You can see break-ins, assaults, drug busts and robberies on crime
mapping sites, too, and comparing my current neighborhood with others south of
town I realize how safe this area truly is. I tend to think of all bedroom
communities to a center city as being safe but they certainly aren’t all equally
as safe. What was an eye opener!
Back to friendships. The divorced guy in the couple
mentioned above is talking seriously about moving to a state where he doesn’t
know a single person. I don’t blame him for wanting to leave the Snow Belt
behind but it sure isn’t in my wheelhouse to do something like that. I think he's under-estimating how important family and friends are in our lives---how much
we all help each other out from time to time, how much joy we get out of just getting together for
a few laughs. He gets credit for being
gutsy though. I’m driving myself crazy researching an area I’ve lived in my
entire life. I’d be in a loony bin if I had to research communities in the
entire Bible Belt. His plan is to just go and roam the South (all by himself) until
he sees something he likes. No research. No planning. If it were me, I’d worry I’d end up in the morgue,
an unidentified victim of a crime, and no one would know I was missing to come
claim my body. Five years from now it will be interesting to compare the
outcome of our diverse methods of moving on with our lives. Good old Facebook, bless its heart, will keep us in touch. ©
