Losing People

Losing someone you love is hard. Extremely hard. No matter how prepared you think you are, it’s never truly the case. Loss doesn’t always come in the form of death either, and that can be even more upsetting.

In my life I have experienced three different ways to lose people. The first and most obvious of course is through death. I lost a dear friend and my aunt. My friend was sudden and took everyone by surprise, she had an aneurysm. My aunt lost her fight to breast cancer. Both of these situations have incredible stories that I will probably share one day, but I am not really in a place to relive them.

The second way I have lost someone I love is to health complications. My grandparents have found themselves dealing with horrible conditions that have taken their ability to live their lives normally. These circumstances have robbed them of their vibrancy and the personalities that I adored growing up. Even though they are still physically with me, they are not the same.

The third and final way that I have lost someone was in the sudden and hurtful loss of friendships. In high school I had 3 extremely good friends. As time went on each one of them ended our friendship in awful ways. The first one began being verbally rude towards me and picking apart my choices to the point I could no longer tolerate it. The second began dating a mutual friend. That relationship took priority and eventually it caused a division that could not be overcome. The final friend was the worst. She was like a sister to me and when we left for college things got difficult but I still made an effort. The effort was never returned so I called her out and told her I wanted us to stay friends and needed her to step up. She agreed and apologized. Next thing I know, she deleted me off Facebook! (Yes, that’s stupid but it’s kind of this day and ages way of terminating a friend).

Unfortunately, Josh and I were forced to experience the third form of loss right before our wedding.

His best man was his best friend for ten years and someone I had known since age 6. He was the obvious choice for the role because he knew us so well. When we got engaged he was excited to celebrate with us and he even took our engagement photos! (The one below is one of my favs!)

As the wedding got closer, he changed. There was a new girl in the picture and that relationship made it incredibly hard for us to spend time together. Activities that we all once enjoyed were now looked down on or not even allowed. (She was controlling to the point that she made him give up all of his passwords to social media. And picked a fight over conversations he had prior to them even knowing each other!)

When big events happened in preparation for the wedding, our best man was hardly present. He didn’t attend our engagement party, and fought over the phone with his girlfriend during our shower. It got to the point that he wasn’t even communicating with us and no one knew if he would show up for the bachelor party, let alone the wedding. When the bachelor party rolled around he ended up showing but he wasn’t his normal self and it was all really awkward.

The week before our wedding Josh and I received an incredibly long text from our best man. It made us out to be against his girlfriend and accused us of not supporting the changes he was making to “better himself.” I was appalled and of course responded defending the fact that we weren’t against him bettering himself, that we were against him conforming for a new girl and being a shitty friend. Josh took himself off the group message and handled it on his own. Our best man only responded to Josh and said that he didn’t think we wanted him as the best man so he was stepping down. (And his girlfriend would not be attending). Josh responded and told him, “We will let you know if we want you there, and your girlfriend was already uninvited.” 

We haven't heard from him since.

I was devastated. Our best man and one of our best friends completely pulled a 180 the week before we got married!!!! (All you brides out there can probably sense my fury).

Losing someone you love to death is hard, but it’s a crazy kind of pain when someone chooses to leave you.