It's been an emotional day.
On a chain around my neck is a gold pendant in the shape of a little girl's head; on one side, the lines of a face are etched; on the reverse, it says "Kathy 1-29-60". Today is the 46th birthday of the best friend I ever had: she was brilliant, beautiful, funny, sexy, and she died @ 2:30 AM on October 21, 1999, of liver cancer.
I wish I had been smart enough and brave enough to marry her while she was still around, but she was my best friend's girl. She was 19 when I met her, and I was 25; She had the brain of an Einstein, the face of an angel, and the body of a pornstar. The three of us went everywhere together; I never snaked on her in any way shape or form, was never anything other than a true and righteous friend to each and both of them; he got a job & moved away, she dropped out of college to follow him; they got married, and my letters to them went unanswered.
Then they came back, with two sons and a host of problems, all of them him: after years of physical and emotional abuse of her and the boys, years of drunkenness and infidelity, he walked out on them & moved in with a stripper, married and divorced her, went on to a stripper/addict, then another, then on to hospitals, to jails....
Though my heart ached at what he had done to himself, it was what he did to his wife and children that really messed me up - I was a new father myself in those days. I met with him, to see if I could reach him, but by this point, all he could talk about was his new whore - how smart, how pretty, how talented; didn't want to talk or hear about his children, just about how fertile he was - TWO sons! - and when I tried to share with him how much I was getting out of being a father to my then-infant girl, he dissed me and her in the same breath.
I let him go, and kept up with her, for I had lost all respect for him.
We didn't date, I wasn't after her, we were friends: we'd babysit each other's kids, help each other move, swap errands, take the kids to the playground, cry on each other's shoulder. For this, he confronted me one day. At my place of work. Offered loudly to kill me on the spot, because you don't mess with your friend's woman!. I told him that as he was on his third whore since abandoning her, she could not possibly be considered "his woman", that I had done nothing to dishonor him, her or myself, but if he felt the need to kill me, he should go right ahead - it wouldn't be a stretch for what he'd become.
That was the last time I saw him; the kids grew up, and she & I would talk every day on the phone, like we had for years - old friends, used to each other in a thousand tiny ways. She remarried eventually (a good man, she was happy with him), but not long after, we found out how ill she was. It all went very quickly - she was only in the hospital for 2 days; she died looking into my eyes, and the last sound that left her lips was my name.
I ended up marrying a friend who was there with me the night she died; today, that friend, my wife, told me she doesn't want to be married anymore. I am glad she doesn't want to be married anymore, because we have been very unhappy together, from the day we moved into our house together, and I don't want us to be unhappy anymore.
How rich and strange, that a relationship born at the deathbed of a woman I had loved in silence and in secret for more than 20 years should end today, on that woman's birthday.
Everyone who knew me knew she was my best friend...but no-one knew what she meant to me: I never told anyone, not even her.
Until now.
Happy birthday, Kathy -
Knowing you has made my life better in so many ways!
I hope I meet you again one day.
I wish you were here with me now.
I'm sorry I never told you how much I love you.
I miss you so much....
On a chain around my neck is a gold pendant in the shape of a little girl's head; on one side, the lines of a face are etched; on the reverse, it says "Kathy 1-29-60". Today is the 46th birthday of the best friend I ever had: she was brilliant, beautiful, funny, sexy, and she died @ 2:30 AM on October 21, 1999, of liver cancer.
I wish I had been smart enough and brave enough to marry her while she was still around, but she was my best friend's girl. She was 19 when I met her, and I was 25; She had the brain of an Einstein, the face of an angel, and the body of a pornstar. The three of us went everywhere together; I never snaked on her in any way shape or form, was never anything other than a true and righteous friend to each and both of them; he got a job & moved away, she dropped out of college to follow him; they got married, and my letters to them went unanswered.
Then they came back, with two sons and a host of problems, all of them him: after years of physical and emotional abuse of her and the boys, years of drunkenness and infidelity, he walked out on them & moved in with a stripper, married and divorced her, went on to a stripper/addict, then another, then on to hospitals, to jails....
Though my heart ached at what he had done to himself, it was what he did to his wife and children that really messed me up - I was a new father myself in those days. I met with him, to see if I could reach him, but by this point, all he could talk about was his new whore - how smart, how pretty, how talented; didn't want to talk or hear about his children, just about how fertile he was - TWO sons! - and when I tried to share with him how much I was getting out of being a father to my then-infant girl, he dissed me and her in the same breath.
I let him go, and kept up with her, for I had lost all respect for him.
We didn't date, I wasn't after her, we were friends: we'd babysit each other's kids, help each other move, swap errands, take the kids to the playground, cry on each other's shoulder. For this, he confronted me one day. At my place of work. Offered loudly to kill me on the spot, because you don't mess with your friend's woman!. I told him that as he was on his third whore since abandoning her, she could not possibly be considered "his woman", that I had done nothing to dishonor him, her or myself, but if he felt the need to kill me, he should go right ahead - it wouldn't be a stretch for what he'd become.
That was the last time I saw him; the kids grew up, and she & I would talk every day on the phone, like we had for years - old friends, used to each other in a thousand tiny ways. She remarried eventually (a good man, she was happy with him), but not long after, we found out how ill she was. It all went very quickly - she was only in the hospital for 2 days; she died looking into my eyes, and the last sound that left her lips was my name.
I ended up marrying a friend who was there with me the night she died; today, that friend, my wife, told me she doesn't want to be married anymore. I am glad she doesn't want to be married anymore, because we have been very unhappy together, from the day we moved into our house together, and I don't want us to be unhappy anymore.
How rich and strange, that a relationship born at the deathbed of a woman I had loved in silence and in secret for more than 20 years should end today, on that woman's birthday.
Everyone who knew me knew she was my best friend...but no-one knew what she meant to me: I never told anyone, not even her.
Until now.
Happy birthday, Kathy -
Knowing you has made my life better in so many ways!
I hope I meet you again one day.
I wish you were here with me now.
I'm sorry I never told you how much I love you.
I miss you so much....