Collateral damage has a bitter taste

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Did you ever lose a friend all of the sudden, without having any explanation for it? I don't mean him dying or going into a coma. What I am referring to is to have an old time friend deciding out of the blue to shut you out of his life, without providing you any possible reason for his act.

The reason I am asking this is because it just happened to me! Someone very close to me, that I called family (without being blood related) suddenly turned his back on me and excluded me from his life. He was like my second dad and my son's grandfather, which makes it a bit hard to swallow.

Two months ago when I left to Europe, everything was alright. Before my departure, I passed by his place and separated on good terms. A month ago when I sent him an email with some photos of my son, again everything was fine. He replied to my email stating he was anxiously waiting for our return.

One day before we came back, he had a verbal disagreement (which was nothing serious) with his only best friend, who lives in the same building as me. In order to avoid him, he decided it would be a great idea to avoid me as well. He did not respond to any of my messages! Therefore I understood that because of their quarrel, I became collateral damage.

After four days of trying to reach him by phone, text and passing by his place two times, I realized that I had to stop. Initially I assumed that it was a mood, then I thought it was something serious going on with his health or that he went missing. Each time I called him phone, it was off and went straight to voicemail.

Last night when I was on my way back home, I drove on his street I saw the light was turned on. For a moment I was happy to see he wasn't missing or dead. I couldn't stop and pass by because my son was asleep in the car and it was already late. I was glad to have seen a glimpse of him through his window.

Though I could not understand why he felt the sudden urge to stay away from me? Knowing him, I thought he might have got cancer or a terminal illness and he was trying to keep me away in order not to be a burden to me.

Since this whole issue bothered me to the point that I was not able to sleep, I send him one email stating that I won't try to reach him anymore and if he ever needed my help or wanted to talk to me, my door would be open. What saddened me the most was that my son was really excited to see his "Papa" and I had to lie to him.

How could I explain to my 4 year old that his grandpa cared more about his own ego than him? It would not do any good. Thus, I told my son that his grandfather was travelling for a while.

This morning I was thrilled when I saw I got a text message from my friend. I was expecting some sort of explanation for his strange behaviour, but all I got was: " Please forgive me for being rude, but the only way to cut out S. out of my life, is to stop seeing you as well."

I was shocked to see that eleven years of friendship went so easily down the drain for him. His reason did not make any sense to me. To be honest, I was quite disappointed to see how little he valued my friendship. But this was clearly what he wanted. You can't force people to be in your life just because you love them! They're free to make their own choices and live their lives the way they want it!

Where does this leave me? Well, I guess this was a lesson I had to learn! Maybe it will make more sense somewhere down the road, but right now I am stuck with the bitter taste.