The friends you want to zap

 If you haven't seen the film Mars Attack, I suggest you do. It is a funny movie, if a bit wacky. In the movie the Martians invade Earth and zap (to death) everything and everyone.  Lately I have been thinking that is a great skill to have. After loss you learn who really cares about you and who doesn't. 

There are friends that promise the world, please call anytime...etc. Really!? Where do you expect I will find the time, juggling my full time job, 2 small children,a house and my AirBnB business? When I do have the time, I am normally too tired or too upset to attempt to call anyone. In the world of rapid communications and social media, they can easily call, message, send a letter, and if they are close enough they can send smoke signals. Instead, what you find is that the same friends check on you over and over again, and the rest is radio silence.

They feel they offered help (once) and they have fulfilled their friend's duties, so zap zap to you, Martian's style. Of course I am using this as a metaphor, one I don't have the martian gun, and two I can't be asked. I know that friendships ebb and flow and I try to be graceful and understand that they probably don't grasp this huge loss that I am going through. Either way, I am amazed that friends will avoid you  if they feel they cannot help, but the widowers and widows of the world know that being there is the HELPING.

So here is a list of friends to zap (in case I get a martian gun):

- The ones (you barely knew) that ask you how he died, days after he passed away

-The ones that promise they are there for you and disappear

-Friends that compare the loss of a spouse to losing an elderly parent, dog, cat, parrot...

-Friends that on learning of the cancer terminal diagnosis, ask you to pray, read a book on how to starve cancer, suggest some crazy shamanic singing to cure it.

I am sounding like a widow renegade now...

I will finish it off by borrowing a quote about grief from a fellow widower,:

 " But when only one subject will do and I've got something I need to get off my chest, it'd be a great shame to end up talking about the weather with someone who can only handle it when the sun shines " Life as a Widower.