Sunday, November 25, 2007

Deep Thoughts . . . on Friendship

I recently read and reviewed "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan."* You can read my review by clicking here. In a nutshell, it's the story of two girls who are sworn to be life-long friends and have a falling-out along the way because one girl misunderstood what the other girl meant to say, and they spent years with feelings of remorse and bitterness in their hearts. At the end of Snow Flower's life, they realized that it had all been a misunderstanding, and they made peace.

Reading this book was painful for me. I had a falling-out with a friend of mine three years ago, and we still haven't patched things up. She was struggling with certain difficulties in her life and so was I, and for some reason which I still have not yet figured out, she stopped taking my phone calls. After repeated tries, I realized that she had chosen to stop communicating with me, and so I've respected that, although I don't understand why. I'm sure I must have said or done something that hurt her, but I've thought it through from every angle and can't come up with what I did. We had been as inseparable as the two girls in the book, and now I haven't spoken to her in three years. I hope that we will someday have the chance, as Snow Flower and Lily did, to iron out the misunderstanding and figure out what happened, but for now, she's in my prayers and always will be.

*If you choose to read this book, and you should, because it's good, I strongly recommend that you skip the chapter called "Catching Cool Breezes."

12 comments:

Anna said...

I had a similar thing happen to me back in H.S. I had been friends with someone since I was 10. I went to Disney World with her family, we hung out a lot.

For some reason between the summer of freshman and sophomore years, we no longer hung out or talked. I never could figure it out.

Now years later, I have a somewhat idea. We did have different types of friends - hers were in band, some of mine had questionable values, but was a cousin and a friend from childhood. That's the best I can come up with of why she quit talking to me.

Hopefully this problem with your friend can be resolved though. Mine was a high school/teenager years thing.

G. Parker said...

I have that going on right now. My best friend of almost 25 years, suddenly stopped emailing me. It was totally mind blowing. We stopped by her house and left a note and she finally called me, but things just aren't the same. She said she thought I was mad at her because I hadn't returned her emails. I guess it's an email glitch on my end, but after the phone conversation, I'm debating on if I want to work at this or not. sigh. Good friends are hard to come by though...
good luck with yours.

Anonymous said...

Can you give us a hint as to why we should skip that chapter?

Tristi Pinkston said...

Um . . . only if you really want me to, Wendy. :)

Let's just say that I believe physical relations should take place between men and women and I tend to avoid books that would show me otherwise.

Rachelle Christensen said...

'nough said! Thanks for the tip.

Tristi Pinkston said...

Oh, I'm so glad that was enough, Rachelle! I really didn't want to say any more. :)

ali cross said...

Aww Tristi, I am so sorry for your loss. I'm sure your prayers have been heard and wherever your friend is, she is feeling the love. One day, you'll come together again ...

Hugs.

mindyluwho said...

I've had the same experience, only I think it was a mutual pulling back because of some frustrating feelings we had toward each other. Our friendship isn't the same, but I still love and respect her.

Cheri J. Crane said...

Loved the blog, Tristi. It's sounding like most of us have suffered through this kind of loss. I hope that we can all have a happy ending to our respective stories. =)

I pray for that a lot, actually, especially with regard to a fomerly close friend of mine. We are both Type 1 diabetics, we served together for years in the YW, then after we were released, we drifted apart and I've never quite been able to figure out why. Character building moments, eh?! =)

Julie Wright said...

oh Tristi . . . I do know how you feel. something similar happened to me and I still want to cry over it. I have sort of ideas as to why she doesn't want to talk to me anymore, but honestly I am afraid to find out for sure. But no matter what . . . we've got eachother!!!

Danyelle Ferguson said...

After reading through all the comments, I'm surprised by the amount of us who are reaching out to each other because of our friends we've lost. Isn't it sad, but nice?

Anyway, I was in the same situation in high school. I had my very very very best friend since third grade. We did absolutely everything together. Until my junior year of high school when I joined the LDS church. Apparently, she couldn't get past it. Of course, her attitude was that I had just committed my soul to hell for joining the church (no matter how much I talked to her about Jesus or our beliefs). And basically, it came down to the fact that she felt associating with me wasn't a good thing for her soul either. So, while I know the reason for our estrangement, I still mourn the loss of her friendship and often wonder where she is and how she's doing today.

Whew - that was probably more than you wanted to know. But I do want to add that I read the Snow Flower book too and it was fascinating! I couldn't put it down. I also strongly suggest skipping the chapter Tristi mentioned. But really, you should read this book. It was excellent!

Misty said...

I've been meaning to get back to your blog to post on this topic.

All I can think of is: pray, pray, pray. Pray for the resolution you'd like to see in this friendship, and pray that you can find peace in this heart breaking situation.

I found myself in this very same spot in April of this year, except I knew what went wrong. And boy, the heart ache I've felt over this woman has been a trial for me.

Keep your chin up, and I'll be rooting for you!

xo Misty

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