Hour after hour, I pour though old letters, emails and texts searching for clues of your true essence. You shared triumphs and tribulations through a narrow lens, allowing me to see only part of who you are and what you believe. Snippets of your life, like photographs, revealed only what you thought would match my own life. In hindsight, I realize how much of yourself you kept cloaked under sharing only specific parts of your life with me. The paths of your youth diverged slowly. Our commonalities of being young wives with young children diverged many years ago. You simply didn’t let me know.
My career in education spanned thirty years. I shared with you all of the hardships and rewards with detailed descriptions. Your lifeline of sanity, warmth and kindness tethered me to hope even as Mom slowly died from Huntington’s disease. You never missed a holiday or birthday. That generosity made me feel special. Sometimes I carried guilt because I couldn’t reciprocate with anything more than words. Long letters and emails that pulled you into every aspect of my world. All I had to give was myself.
Imagine my pain and loss to learn that you let me into only the parts of your life that you thought matched who and what I am. Not who and what you truly are. Did I fail as a friend? Did you believe I would turn my back on the person you’d grown into?
Had you shared with me more of your true self, I wouldn’t grieve as I do right now.
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Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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