SoapZone Community Message Board

if anyone's around on the weekend, especially since it's the weekend before a holiday and folks are out buying last minute gifts or ingredients for the holiday feast, but here goes...

Back in high school, I was friends with a girl named Becky. People talk about seasons in their lives...Becky and I were literally friends for a season, maybe two. We were on different tracks--I was in honors-type classes on my way to college and she was an average student taking somewhat easier classes--but we were in art for non-majors together the second semester of...one of our school years. It was a tougher class than anyone expected, mainly because the teacher didn't seem to understand the "non-major" part and expected us all to turn in work that would make a professional artist proud, and Becky and I bonded over our shared "just above average" artistic talent and a few weeks painting different murals in the hallways. I liked Becky just fine but other than being stuck in the same miserable art class (I once spent three weeks--three weeks!--on a pencil drawing of a single egg; the teacher kept giving it back to me to "fix" the shading), we didn't have much in common. We exchanged a few polite words at graduation and I thought that was that.

Sometime either during college or shortly after, I wound up on Becky's Christmas card list. Which was fine; I would send her a card back. Then she got married and had two (three?) daughters and after a few years with a card and a Christmas newsletter highlighting the girls' accomplishments as they grew, the cards stopped. Frankly, I was relieved. I have trouble not reciprocating when someone gets me a card or a gift.

And then, inexplicably, I got a Christmas card and newsletter last year from Becky. Or more accurately, Becky's husband. I wondered if maybe she pawned the Christmas chore of sending cards off on him and he somehow found an old list and just sent cards to everyone on it. I fought my instinct to send a card back and tossed the card/letter into the plastic Santa boot that holds all our Christmas cards each Christmas.

This year, I once again received a card/newsletter from Becky's husband. The entire newsletter was a deeply personal account of how the husband's mother has been battling dementia for a few years now and how she's in her final days, unable to get out of bed, unable to speak, unable to feed herself and unable to recognize anyone. I actually felt uncomfortable reading it, in part because I've had some limited experience with folks with dementia and I find it all terribly upsetting (and yes, I realize if *I'm* upset, how much worse must it be for the person going through it?). There was one incident when I was a child that has really stuck with me all these years...anyways, now I'm unsure how to respond. Of course I feel terrible for Becky's husband and his family having to experience a loved one deal with such a cruel disease. But at the same time, I have no interest in rekindling the friendship.

Should I send a card and a heartfelt sympathetic message? Should I send a card and just sign my name? Should I not send a card at all, like I did last year? What would you do in my position?