From The Past: January 13, 2004

Several years ago, my best friend was murdered. We met because she had a child in the same class at school as Andrew. While I was pregnant with Ashley, she was also pregnant. She was only four months behind me.

Throughout our friendship she told me how horrible her husband was and naturally, I believed her. That’s what friends do; they believe and they blindly trust and love. I knew that her husband was gone a lot, but I thought it was because he was selfish and wanted to be alone. When I saw him, I was always nice to him, but I secretly thought he had to be the biggest A-hole on earth.

At the time of her death, she and her husband had been separated for about two months and she was seeing someone else. Her husband had moved to another town and left her with the house.

While her four children were on a weekend trip with their dad, the new man in her life strangled her to death. The cause of death was asphyxiation. It also came out in the newspaper that she was doing cocaine and drinking and they had had an argument. I knew that she took pills for depression, but the cocaine information was a very big deal to me. In the years that I knew her, I never would have suspected cocaine. Her mother later told me that her daughter had this problem for years.

I would like to believe that had I known she had this problem when she was alive, I would have done something to try and help her. Someone should have done something. For goodness sake, her mother knew and apparently stood on the sidelines. Maybe she tried to talk to her, but apparently whatever she did wasn’t good enough. But someone else knew too; someone who lived with her every day; someone that should have had her committed to a program. That person was her husband.

When she died, I went to her visitation. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to talk to him about anything. I had been gullible and I had believed everything that she told me about him. Some of it may have been true, who knows. It doesn’t really matter now anyway. I can’t even imagine having to live with a person who has a drug habit, especially one as bad as that one had to be.

Looking back, I should have known that something was wrong. There were instances with the children that should have never happened, but I blamed it on her depression, or she hadn’t taken her pills that day, etc. I wish I had looked her in the eyes and asked her what was really going on. I just didn’t see it being her fault. I thought that she acted the way that she did because of her husband. He was supposed to be the bad husband and because of that, he made her act the way that she did.

It had been years since I had seen him. I would run into the kids every now and then at school, but they didn’t remember me. It’s sad to say, but young children really don’t remember a lot unless they are around you on a regular basis. For the past two weeks in a row I have seen her husband in the same restaurant with two of the four children and his new wife. He just remarried in November. The first time I saw him, he didn’t speak to me at all. The second time, he said hello and commented on how big Andrew had gotten. Just tonight I saw one of the kids at a local gym where we walk. She was there for cheerleading practice. About a half an hour later, I ran into him entering our local Wal-Mart. He made quick small talk and kept walking.

I would love to tell him that I am truly happy for him. That I understand why he left, why he could no longer cope. That I don’t blame him. That she was my friend and I loved her, but no one should have to go through that. I’m happy that the kids have a mother figure to look up to. I would love to wish him all the best if I only had the nerve.