My Friendship

Wish List

I wish you could understand the pain that I feel.  I DO NOT WANT you to ever experience the pain, I just wish I had someone to help me carry the hurt.  My heart actually hurts, it is a physical pain and I am scared that I will not be able to survive the suffering.

I wish you wouldn’t say, "If there is anything I can do, let me know."  I don’t ever know what I need or if there is anything you can do – just go ahead and do whatever you think needs to be done.  At times I am incapable of making decisions.  Just getting out of bed in the morning remains an effort.

I wish you would listen to me and be accepting and supportive of my feelings and emotions.  I think I am going crazy with all of these wild thoughts.  The anger, sadness, depression, guilt, the mental confusion.  Help me with these feelings – not by giving me advice, but by just listening.  Let me rant and rave, let me verbalize my fears and frustrations.  Don’t try to analyze them, just help me to let them be!

I wish you wouldn’t expect me to be 'normal'.  Don’t expect me to 'be over this' within your expected time frame.  I am still grieving.  I am NEVER going to get over this, but I will hopefully learn to live with the pain and the loss.  Don’t make me feel guilty by not having met your 'recovery schedule'.  Don't expect me to 'not think about it' or to 'be happy'.  Neither will happen at your insistence, so don't frustrate yourself.

I wish you would say my child's name.  Just because she is no longer living with us here on earth, doesn't mean that she never existed.  I would welcome a conversation about my child.

I wish you would send me a card on her birth date or anniversary date of her death. 

I wish you would remember my child with me.  I love hearing and talking about my child.  It may bring a tear to my eye, but that’s OK.  Maybe you can even share a tear or two with me.

I wish you would support me in my examination of my faith and my philosophy of life.  The death of my child has changed me.  I am not the same person I was before my child died.  I just cannot accept life for what it once meant to me.  I may return to those past beliefs and philosophies, but give me the time and space to do my exploring.  I will probably be a better person for the journey and subsequently a better friend.

I wish that you understood when I say, "I'm doing okay", I don't really 'feel' okay.  It's simply the best that I can give now.

I wish that people would never again say, "You gotta' get past this, Susan."  Tell me how you would 'get past this' if your child had died.

I wish I could help our friendship, but I just don’t have the energy.  I don’t want to put the entire responsibility of our friendship on your shoulders, but I just don’t have any more room on mine for another burden.  I hope you will stay with me – not just for the present time, but for however long it takes.  If you are a good friend to me, I don't want to lose you too.  Just give me some time and space and perhaps one day we will realize that the bond of our friendship has grown even deeper because of the journey that we have taken together into the valley of the shadow of death.