I have to have a long talk with one of my bff's on Monday. I've been avoiding it because he has been through so much in the last few months and has been so supportive when he didn't have to.

But his daughter has moved away, she's an adult and is living with family who got her a good job so she can go to school. She's 10 hours from her parents.

I've tried so hard to point out to him how lucky he is. How lucky they are that they were able to have her home for 19 years. How lucky they are that they got to watch her be born, have all of her firsts, through the laughter and tears, scraped knees and broken hearts, through her infant, toddler, child, pre-teen, and teen years, her every success and failure, and to be able to marvel at how mature she is, how good of a kid she is, how she was able to graduate and now they get to see their success in raising her. To watch her go out in the world and follow her dreams, find out who she really is, to get married and have kids.

But, the last two weeks, he hasn't been there for me. I understand why he hasn't. It isn't that. It is the fact that he is comparing his living, adult daughter leaving home to me losing my babies. I know how hard it is for him, I really do. I was that daughter, daddy's little girl, that left home 12 years ago. I know how hard it is and how difficult it was for my father. I also know he doesn't see how his comparison makes me feel...how different his situation is from mine and that his loss isn't the same as mine. Not to mention the fact that they have a son at home and for a while, it has been all about their daughter leaving.

I have to tell him that for our friendship, I have to take a step back and that if we continue to talk and hang right now that him and his wife can't compare or expect me to talk about my loss. Because if we approach the subject and in a weak moment my loss is compared to theirs, I might just lose my composure and explode...that they STILL have a living daughter and son, and that her being away from home is difficult, but not the same as being dead. Because no matter how you think it feels or you think you understand, you don't understand unless you have been there. I wouldn't wish losing a child on anyone and I don't want them to understand how this feels.

It isn't the same...I will never get to hold my babies. I will never get to hear their cries or change their diapers. I will never have anything regarding a living child with my twins. I will never be able to pick up a phone to tell them I love them or to get on a plane or in a car to go and see them. I will never get to see how their lives would be because they will never get to live them. I will never have memories of them growing up or leaving home. I will never be that lucky to have them grow up and become independent.

They don't get how lucky they are and as much as I want to be there for them right now, I just can't. They don't want to hear how lucky they are or that as painful as it is for their kid to leave home, that they taught her right and prepared her for this. They don't want to hear that she's just a phone call or drive away. That they still have her and they will still get to see her and talk to her. I know it's hard and heartbreaking.

And I can't hear that it's the same as my loss.

So for the sake of our friendship, I have to have this talk. I have to put this out there, as hard as it is, that I can't take hearing the comparison. That if it continues it will most likely ruin our friendship. I want to support them right now, but it has to work both ways and it isn't fair to compare the situations or act that one is worse than the other. I've never ever made my problems worse than my friends'. I've always kept our problems separate and never compared them. Until he compared them a few days ago. I can be supportive, but there just can't be any more of the 'we both lost our kids at the same time' . Two separate losses and two separate conversations. It can't be entertwined any more.

I dread this conversation. I hate the fact that I have to bring this up. I hate that I feel like this. I hate the fact that it could hurt our friendship, but I have to do it before I say something in a moment of grief that would end our friendship.

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Listening to: Stone Sour - Through Glass
via FoxyTunes