Loss of a Friend

In order to move on with this site, I need to get some things off my chest. Not that I can’t continue without getting it out in the open, but it will make things so much easier for me once I do.

I had met a friend online about five years ago. Throughout those five years we had become great friends, and had spent a lot of time together, talking on Skype, playing games, sharing our thoughts and views, and more. He had also become friends with my wife, and she would spend a lot of time with us doing the same (except for the political arguing).

In late Summer or early Fall of 2009, we had asked that he come down to visit us for the holiday season. We had a hotel room reserved for him that would have been no cost to him. We had purchased special things that we knew that he liked, such as food and coffee, and even had gifts that he would find in his stocking on Christmas Day.

As far as we knew, everything was set. He had his bus ticket “sitting on the desk next to him” and we knew what time he would be arriving in town.

Over the months between the planning and the time that he was to come, my wife and I had some doubts as to whether he would actually come, or not. There was no real reason behind the doubts we had… it was just a feeling. On the morning before he was to leave, my wife had talked to him, and she told me that she had no doubt that he was coming, any more.

Then… During the time that he “should have been” sleeping, packing, getting ready to leave, or on the bus, we discovered something that we still can’t comprehend.

We were friends of his on Facebook. Two of our sons and a daughter-in-law were also listed as his Facebook friends. All of a sudden, he removed all of us from his friends, there. We had also played World of Warcraft, and he was in our guild. Suddenly, his level 70-ish character (his only toon) was deleted. He hadn’t even logged on to delete it.

He still had friends listed when I looked at his Facebook page, but since I was no longer a friend, that was all I could see. He could not claim that somebody “hacked” his accout or computer and got rid of everything, since it was obvious that it was very selective. We received no explaination from him… no phone call… no email.

I actually held out hope that he was playing some sort of “trick” on us, and that he would call us at the time that the bus was supposed to arrive. That never happened.

What did happen is I had sent him one email… not asking for a reason, but to tell him how bad he hurt us. After that, I deleted any contact information, listings, bookmarks, and anything else that I had from him. Even though I had deleted everything, it didn’t answer the big question… “Why”… that I have. Maybe there isn’t a reason… or what he feels may be a “good enough” reason why. All that he had to do was make something up and we would have been okay with it.

Instead, he decided to burn a bridge. That wide river that took five years to cross now has no way accross, except to swim. I’m on the other side of that river and won’t be crossing it, again.