Nothing but crickets

That's all I'm hearing from my oldest friend in California.

She offered to come out and hold my hand through surgery, sit with my mother while the procedure went down, and stay with me for a few days after I'm released from the hospital. I was afraid to trust her. For, while I believed she sincerely wanted to be there for me, I didn't see how she could. She hasn't been at work since February, living off workman's comp after a tumble at her job. Both her son and her daughter are very troubled. She simply doesn't have the resources to drop everything and come 2000 miles to help.

Yet she won't admit it. First she was angry and hurt because I was rejecting her offer. She reiterated that she would be here for me. PERIOD.

Last week she dialed it back to "gonna try like hell." Because now she may not be able to get a cheap flight, or her own follow-up surgery scheduled (!), or a high school counselor to come over every day and take her daughter (soon to begin her sophomore year) to school. And now there's no way she can be here for both the surgery and the aftermath.

This week I haven't heard a single word from her.

Is she embarrassed? Blue? Has her own surgery been scheduled yet? Is something happening out West that requires her to need my help? I get very frustrated with her.

But I must breathe deeply and remember three things:

1) This is who she is, she's not going to change
2) Her intentions were golden, and that matters
3) No one makes me laugh like she does, and it would be nice if she could make it out here. If not, well, I'm fortunate enough to still have my mom and my friend Kathleen.