My best friend died in February 2024. We didn’t speak for 7 years.
On a normal February evening, a former colleague texted me: “We can never hear anything from Jason again. He’s gone.” (Jason is an alias)
“Good for him, he’s retired now, time to enjoy life. Time passed by so swiftly, that he reached the retirement age.” I texted back.
“No, he’s not retired. He died, just this week, due to illness.” He texted me back.
Silence.
I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t talk to Jason for 7 years. He was one of my best friends. It was a friendship beyond age, gender, and nation. Now, he’s dead. I will never have the chance to talk to him, ever again.
I opened my work laptop and searched for the last message he sent me. It was over three years ago. He wrote: “I saw someone walking exactly like you. I knew it was you, I couldn’t be wrong. I checked on the intranet that you have moved to the same office location as I do. How are you?”
I answered back briefly, didn’t want to write too much. I guessed he wanted to ask me for a favor, probably to help his girlfriend, the woman who broke his marriage, to find a job within my team. Or maybe not. Perhaps he just wanted to talk, we were very good friends before. Maybe he just wanted to say hi. Maybe…
But now, I can never know his intention of talking to me out of a sudden after years of silence.
He’s dead.
I don’t regret anything else. I only regret that I didn’t ask him a few questions and listened to his answers.
We got to know each other at work. We worked at the same company in different locations. We worked on the same project and traveled to the same city to the customer’s site. He was the expert of experts in a specific domain worldwide. No one was as knowledgeable as him in that domain. I was a fresh graduate working hard to pave my way. He appreciated my fast learning abilities, my intelligence, and the high quality of work I finished. He became my mentor. I learnt a lot from him and I treated him just like my uncle and he treated me like his niece.
7 years ago, he had an affair with another colleague of mine. I was very disappointed. I had met his family in person, they invited me to have dinner together: a happy family with a super kind wife and two sweet daughters. How could he just ruin this? How could he let his family members be sad? It was intolerable.
I asked him directly face to face, if he had an affair. He admitted.
I said: “I’m very disappointed in you. How can you cheat on your family? They are so nice, how can you hurt them like this? I can never tolerate such a behavior.”
He answered: “Never say never.”
I said nothing and left the office meeting room.
Obviously, the third person in his marriage heard my reaction and started to hate me. Soon she left our company, I don’t know the reason why. I sent Jason birthday, Christmas, and New Year wishes in the following years, but he never replied.
He chose to end our friendship. He abandoned his family. He abandoned his friend.
On the day before yesterday, I visited a friend who lives in the same geographical area as Jason lived.
My friend told me, before he moved there, he heard that the people there were hard to handle. To his surprise, the people there were very helpful and friendly.
That reminded me of Jason, such a nice person, such a wonderful friend. I told my friend what happened between Jason and me.
My friend said: “Did you ask him why he chose to have an affair? Was he happy in that marriage? How was his family doing when he was alive?”
I answered: “No. No matter what happened, he cheated and that was unacceptable.”
My friend said: “Perhaps next time you are in such a situation, just treat the friend as a friend. Just look at how the friend is behaving in your friendship. Probably they have difficulties that they don’t tell.”
“It’s too late. I can never know why Jason cheated, I can never know if he was happy, if his family was happy, and what exactly happened.” I felt regretful not asking Jason all these questions when he was alive, and now it’s too late.
My friend smiled: “There’s an afterlife. Probably someday you will meet him in a new identity. Then, probably you will become friends again.”
I don’t know about the afterlife, I don’t know if Jason’s soul is still alive. I don’t know. But what I know is, I should have asked him more, instead of judging him directly from his behavior.
It is wrong to cheat. But I regret not asking my friend deeper questions about what happened, about his feelings.
It’s so easy to judge based on the simple surface we see and it’s so difficult to collect all the facts to make a reasonable conclusion. Probably judgment and conclusion should not be taken into consideration in some cases. Probably instead of judging, it is more important to ask, to understand, to care, to accept that no one is perfect and humans are vulnerable creatures.
I miss you, Jason. Thank you for being a great friend, a supportive mentor, and a reliable colleague. May you rest in peace. You remain one of my best friends, forever.
