I watch the light slowly fade through my window. The clouds whip past and the palm trees bend against the wind. A major hurricane has just passed and the rain has finally stopped. I watch as neighbors cautiously venture out to assess the damage. In this moment my mind is not on the storm, I am thinking about how friendships change after cancer.
Before I had cancer myself, time and time again I heard that when you get cancer (or any other serious illness for that matter) the people you think will be there for you won’t and people who you never expect turn out to be ride or die. It always struck me as sad. It was even sadder when I was diagnosed with cancer and found out it was true.
I was diagnosed with cancer a year and a week ago and I am now far enough into my recovery that I can finally gain some perspective and take stock of where I stand in life. Things are still hard. I am still dealing with major health issues and there is no doubting that my life will never be the same. Sadly, I look around me and see that some of the people who I used to count on, who I thought were loyal to the end, are nowhere to be found.
This tugs at me a fair amount because as I heal emotionally and do the self-work it takes to move forward, I find myself faced with the fact that like it or not these people who didn’t show up for me…they really hurt me…and at times I feel a little resentful towards them. Having these feelings is extremely unpleasant because these are people I care deeply for, and I just never saw it coming.
In some ways having cancer is like a wedding…people get WEIRD about it and everyone has their own way of dealing with things. I get that. And I know that everyone has their own issues, jobs, spouses, kids, financial struggles, and a million other daily stressors.
For the most part people did about what I expected them to do and were about as involved with my life during my cancer as they were beforehand. If I heard from them once a week or once a month, I still heard from them once a week or once a month. But then there were some outliers. There were a couple people who I thought would rally and be with me every step of the way who I heard from on a regular basis before my cancer but who pretty much ghosted me afterwards.
One, I suspect, cares for me so much they simply couldn’t bear to see me suffer so they pulled away. Out of sight out of mind. Another was struggling financially after a job loss and maybe felt like they had enough stressors in their own life that it wasn’t their job to reach out. For months I made excuses for both of them, the ones who didn’t show up for me.
But in the end, the truth is, they disappeared at a time when I needed them. They let me down and left me feeling abandoned. And it hurts. Sometimes it makes me angry. I didn’t believe they would treat me this way and leaves me with an unpleasant lingering cognitive dissonance regarding our relationships.
On the flip side, there were people who unexpectedly showed up and never left. I didn’t see that coming either. One of them, an intermittent adversary who on more than one occasion made my pre-cancer life extremely unpleasant. Another a long-distance friend who I spoke to on occasion…but when I got cancer these two were more consistent than anyone else. They sent gifts, cards, daily texts not only during my treatment but all the way up until today. They showed and continue to show deep, very real care for me and I will be forever grateful to these people and loyal until my last breath.
I do take some responsibility for the floundering of my friendships. When I was actively fighting and recovering from cancer every ounce of energy went towards survival and there was nothing left to give to anyone else. I imagine this may have left some friends feeling neglected. Friendship is a two-way street even in the worst of times, after all. Even so, I still can’t shake the feeling that the friends who didn’t show up knew I had cancer and should have empathized with my situation enough to be the ones to take responsibility for reaching out.
Now that I am a little stronger and have the emotional reserve to start rebuilding connections, I find myself torn. On one hand, I miss these friends. I miss the relationships we used to have. On the other, I question whether I should attempt to rebuild a relationship with someone who didn’t show up for me in the most desperate of times. Perhaps it would be better to just let go and put the energy elsewhere. I have changed so much over the last year and they have been so absent from my life I wonder if we have much in common anymore. Perhaps the friendships have simply run their course as friendships sometimes do.
No matter whether I decide to resurrect these relationships or let them go it is obvious that for my own sake I will need to learn to forgive these friends. Part of me wants to start by reaching out and telling them how much they hurt me. But the truth is, I don’t think either wanted to hurt me and I don’t want to hurt them by telling them they let me down. Whether I let the relationships go or not, I do still care for them deeply, otherwise it wouldn’t hurt so much.
The first step to healing and acceptance is to acknowledge the feelings. So today I am finally able to admit that friendships change after cancer and some of my valued friends have hurt me with their absence since my diagnosis. Maybe we will be able to repair these friendships or maybe they will fade away. Only time will tell. But one thing is sure, forgiveness is a must. Now starts the self-work to be able to get there.
