144 – The Cancellation Prize: 11 January 2025
This photo shows the complete list of friends who came to wish us Happy Christmas on 25 December 2021.
Margaret's sister Maurine Redden had visited me in hospital and given me the three stuffed
toys. Our 2021 Christmas was
extremely dismal.
****
Before getting
home after my final hospitalisation on 15 July, my mind was very focused just on
staying alive. I knew Margaret had incurable
cancer, but she had been granted a miraculous reprieve from death in March 2021. I hoped this meant her death
sentence had been removed. I was wrong
in thinking this, but in July and August 2021, I was unaware just how wrong I
was.
Once I got
home and my health began to steadily improve, I became more observant of things
that were happening in our lives apart from Margaret's cancer and my own health.
When she told me on 8 February that she was severing all ties of friendship with me, Anne Ryan pointedly said that even though she was terminating her friendship with me, she “hoped she could remain friends with Margaret”. I did not process this statement at that time
because I had difficulty digesting my own cancellation.
By August
2021, I began to realise that the statement that she “hoped she could
remain friends with Margaret” was a doublespeak way of saying “I will no longer be
friends with Margaret.” She had already decided to cancel Margaret when she decided to cancel me – but she
was too gutless to say this either to me or to Margaret. There was an additional layer to the
cancellation of Margaret and that additional
layer involved making sure that all of Margaret’s other friends – every one of
whom she had been introduced to by Margaret – also cancelled both of us.
The implications
of what Anne had done became apparent to me after I got home from hospital in
July 2021.
As July and
August elapsed, I became aware that Sue Chaman – whom Margaret had known
for about 50 years – had completely stopped visiting our home. Prior to February 2021, she had always been a
regular visitor. Sue had become the
closest of friends with Anne over the years and she was certainly Anne’s lover by
2021.
Anne had
made sure that Sue stopped visiting her dying friend whom she had known for
decades before she ever met her Anne.
Margaret
told me that on 8 February when Anne had told me of my cancellation, Sue had waited
on the street in her car while Anne told me of my cancellation. Sue had then driven Anne back to her unit in
Glenelg. Sue and Anne had jointly decided on what Anne and Sue were going to do.
After 8
February, Sue stopped all contact with me – but unlike Anne, she did not get
around to telling me of my cancellation.
During the months that I was gravely ill and close to death, I had no
contact from Sue Chapman.
Just as her
lover Anne did, Sue did not openly terminate her friendship with Margaret. She simply reduced that friendship to a shell which contained nothing.
Margaret
tried to hide it, but I had been aware that the behaviour of her so called
friends had caused extreme distress to Margaret, but there was nothing I could do
about their behaviour.
In July 2021, Margaret was
in temporary remission from a deadly cancer and she had been completely sidelined by
pretend friends because she was married to me.
I had come
close to dying before Margaret, and I too had been completely shunned by people I
had once believed were my friends.
****
Margaret’s
friend Heather Long seemed to find it more difficult than Sue Chapman to behave
atrociously towards Margaret and me. Margaret
had also known Heather Long for about 50 years.
Heather did
not immediately cease all contact with me and she did not immediately lessen her contacts with Margaret. Heather even sent me a text wishing me happy birthday while I was in hospital.
Heather did
not immediately reduce her friendship with Margaret to an empty shell, but did
have a dilemma. Because Anne and Sue
refused visit Margaret in our home, in practice, Heather was also a rare visitor in Margaret's home.
Because of
the boycott instituted by her friends, Margaret could see her friends only away from our home – usually in coffee shops.
As the months rolled on, the coffee shop catch ups became ever rarer.
Heather’s final attempt to simultaneously be a friend to both Margaret and me and to Anne Ryan and Sue Chapman took place on Sunday 22 August 2021 when she invited Margaret and me, plus other members of the friendship group, to a restaurant dinner to celebrate her husband Andrew Long’s birthday.
Anne boycotted the dinner because I had been invited, but Sue Chapman came.
Other guests
at the restaurant in addition to Andrew and Heather Long were Chris Reilly,
Cheryl Scopazzi and Nes Fernandez.
By the time
Margaret and I got home after dinner on 22 August 2021, I knew very clearly that the
friendship circle had been smashed and it would probably never be repaired.
