‘My friends ghosted me when my mom died.’

“My friends ghosted me when my mom died.

When life was good and easy and a little less messy, I was surrounded by friends. Friends that loved me, wanted to spend time with me and cared about the smallest details of my life.

Then my Mom got cancer and even then, they stayed around but they didn’t care to be too involved. When I was at the hospital with her, they were out. When I was sitting at her house up all night making sure she didn’t take her last breath while I slept, they were asleep at home. When I was at doctors’ appointments and chemotherapy treatments, they were somewhere else. When I sat on the bathroom floor with her so many nights trying to fight back the tears and wanting to run far away, they were nowhere to be found.

I didn’t see it then, I just noticed the calls became less frequent and the invites were scarce. There weren’t any offers to bring over coffee or cook meals. There weren’t offers to come sit with me at her house or come to the hospital and visit.

Then she died and I turned around and it was like everyone just disappeared. The phone calls weren’t returned, the texts were left unanswered and that’s when I realized I had been ghosted by my friends when my mom died and even when she became sick.

I was young when my Mom died, and I get it now. I realize that I can’t expect someone else at that young of an age to understand my grief or the loss when they haven’t experienced it themselves. I understand death scares people and they don’t know what to say to grief, so they just walk away instead.

I’m also thankful for the ones that ghosted me and walked away because it gave room for the good ones to step in, the ones that had suffered a loss of their own. The one’s that weren’t scared to sit with me and my grief even when it was tough. The one’s that say her name, remember me on my birthday and Mother’s Day when I’m missing her the most. The ones that read what I write about her and ask me questions because they want to get to know more about the person, I miss the most in this world.

To the friends that ghosted me when my mom had cancer, thank you. To the friends that ghosted me when she died, thank you. It was because of you that I learned the importance of choosing friends that aren’t just willing to be there when life is easy but when the valleys are deep. The friends that aren’t scared to talk about grief and my dead mom because not even the ghost of her memory can make them ghost me.”

This story was written by Nikki Pennington of Grief To Hope with Nikki Pennington. The article originally appeared here. Follow her on Instagram here and Twitter here. Can you relate to this grief journey? We’d like to hear your story. Submit your story here, and subscribe to our best love stories here.