Every now and then I think of Alfie. Especially on New Years Eve. I have Alfie Eve memories. The millenium bust to be exact. We were duped into spending that night at 'the office' to ensure the computers didn't all burst into simultaneous self-destruct mode at midnight. They didn't. We played cranium. We made a time capsule which is somewhere in the basement. We laughed a lot. I think there was some singing involved. One of the best NYE I've ever spent.
And then... well... and then... Some friendships go the way of the dodo don't they? I'll let Alfie tell the story though. In fact, literary license has graciously allowed him to make two people into one in this article. Fair enough. I'm the bitch boss in case you're wondering.
To make sure I give proper credit. This is from the Royal City Record where Alfie is a staff reporter. His words. Not mine.
We will see what we see.
Friendship a precious gift
Alfie Lau, staff reporter
I received one of the best Christmas gifts ever this year. It didn't cost a cent and it was one of the most unexpected presents I could have ever imagined.
The gift was an e-mail from an old friend that I had fallen out with years ago over something that now turns out to be a misunderstanding.
The e-mail begins: "I hope I find you well. I wanted to say hello, wish you well and tell you that I've really missed your friendship over the last few years. This isn't just Christmas sentimentality, it's something I've been thinking about for a long time."
To backtrack a bit, four years ago I was stuck in a dead-end job that I didn't enjoy, but the one saving grace was I had a good group of "friends" as co-workers.
One Black Friday, when the company was taken over by a British firm, several of us were handed pink slips because we were now redundant. Compounding my situation was I was actually in Edmonton, on vacation, when my severance package came via FedEx. The signature on the waybill indicated it had been sent by my friend, still employed by the company.
When I called her up and asked what happened, I was met with what I thought was a cool, dispassionate, nonchalant attitude. The thought that kept on running through my mind was "friends don't let this sort of stuff happen to friends."
A personal phone call would have been nice, but seeing that signature was all the evidence I needed of betrayal. Bitter at losing a job I didn't enjoy, that was the last time we spoke until that e-mail came to my inbox two days before Christmas.
I mulled over what I was going to do for two days. I had long put that situation to the back of my mind.
Instead of looking at the job loss as a negative, I had the chance to turn it into a positive, give this journalism thing a strong effort instead of just taking the first job that came up the pike. But not until that e-mail came did I think I should try to rekindle that friendship lost four summers ago.
Replying honestly and openly, I said I was amenable to a Boxing Day meeting but I could offer no other guarantees. Did I want to be friends again? Don't know, it might open too many old wounds. Did I appreciate the olive branch of reconciliation? Sure, but maybe the time for that friendship had long since passed.
When I met up with my old friend that afternoon, it seemed as if the good times had never ended. For almost two hours, we talked about what happened four years ago, what's happened since and how, in so many ways, we've matured in that time.
Were mistakes made? Sure, but on both sides. For my part, I was too quick to judge, too quick to place blame on my friend for being Judas. For her part, she was too invested in the corporate culture and protecting her job to realize that I thought she was severing our friendship and not just a job.
But the biggest mistake we made was, we didn't have this conversation sooner.
Besides one e-mail exchange shortly after the FedEx package, we had not communicated at all. And all it took to rectify matters was an honest two-hour conversation.
I found it incredibly heartening to know that, in her own way, my friend had stayed in touch. She told me she was a regular reader of my work and not only could she cite chapter and verse on articles I had long forgotten about, it showed me that what I write on a daily basis does have an impact even if it's not immediately recognized.
Both of us admitted the thought to reconnect had come and passed during the most unusual times: during a Survivor episode because we would spend countless Fridays rehashing what happened the night before; during American Thanksgiving, which I always celebrated by staying home "sick" to recover by watching football on TV; during the 2004 Stanley Cup finals, when her favourite player - Fredrik Modin of the Tampa Bay Lightning - hoisted the Stanley Cup over the Flames I had partied heartily with on the Red Mile in Calgary.
"I realized that I missed you and deeply regretted not continuing to open up, funnily enough, when I watched Freddie Modin hoist the cup over his head," my friend said.
"I realized at that moment that the one person (the only person) I wanted to talk to and the one person who would find it as funny/astonishing (and maybe infuriating) as I did was you. It was sad to not share such a funny moment with the only other person who could've laughed as hard as I did about it. I'd thought about contacting you over the years of course but at that moment I was struck with real sadness."
And perhaps that's the lesson I learned this Christmas season and the one I want to impart to anybody reading this. Think about any relationships that you've lost over the years and, no matter whose fault it is, take that first step and reach out.
If the gesture is not reciprocated, you haven't really lost anything, but if something is still there, it will be a gift that keeps on giving.
Irreconcilable differences are often reconcilable and, as I found out, all it takes is a little effort.
As I discovered in the waning days of this year, I have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season because a friend found me again. And that just might be the greatest gift of all.
0 comments:
Post a Comment