For What it’s Worth — by L.E. Murphy
Everyone knows a secret, told in the most sa- cred confidence, shared only to a best friend, is an oath that should never be broken. I know that, and yet, in the end, I broke the very prom- ise I made. It was a long time ago, back when I was a freshman, living away from home, in a dif- ferent state, bewildered by the magnitude of adulthood, that I met someone who was soon to become my roommate, and then, after grad- uation, my apartment mate. I had best friends before, of course, but this was different. This was my first adult best friend. She was beautiful, kind, soft spoken, and loyal. I was adventurous, rowdy, and bursting with independence. That we became friends was unlikely, but true, and the gears were in motion that proved later, to be greater than both of us, and more important than we would ever know at that time. It must have been a year or so later, when we were mired in studies, spending sleepless nights worrying about grades and things that people worry about at that age, that she sat me down to tell me a story that has stayed with me until
this day. She was an unwed mother, abandoned by her parents, shamed by the community in which she lived, sent away by herself, to bear a child, a daughter. She couldn’t have raised the child, without support, without money, without housing, so she was forced by circumstances to give the baby up for adoption. She said it was the most devastating day of her life. As she spoke, I remember watching her care- fully choose her words, as though each one car- ried a weight too heavy to be set down. There were long pauses between sentences. At times she stared out the window rather than at me, as if she were seeing another place and anoth- er time. I could hear the sorrow in her voice, but there was something else there too—a grief that had never been allowed to heal because it had never been acknowledged. For years she had carried that burden alone. She shared that with me, and made me prom- ise to keep her confidence. I did. For five decades I did not utter a word, not to anyone, not even to her. Her need to unbur-
den herself did not need me to pry, and somehow, with loans, she made it through school and was proud of herself, despite the fact that she graduated without her family there to witness her success. I often thought about that graduation day. While other students cel- ebrated with parents and siblings, posing for photo- graphs and accepting bou- quets of flowers, she stood largely alone. Yet she smiled. She had survived circumstances that would have crushed many people, and she had earned every bit of that diploma. A year after we roomed together in an apartment in New York, I married and moved away. Life, as it often does, carried us in dif-
ferent directions. Careers, families, obligations, and miles accumulated between us. We ex- changed letters for a while, then holiday cards, and eventually even those became sporadic. Still, whenever we reconnected, it felt as though no time had passed. True friendships have a way of preserving themselves through long silences. When we reunited years later, she had been married, cheated on, and left by her husband. But that wasn’t the worst of it. She had fallen ill to a debilitating disease, and had to be moved into a care facility. The only good that came out of her marriage were two daughters, born a few years apart. Her life was not easy, but she car- ried on with grace and dignity, still keeping fast her secret. I visited her whenever I could. Though her body grew weaker, her spirit never seemed di- minished. She remained thoughtful and gener- ous, asking more questions about others than she ever answered about herself. Occasional- ly I wondered whether she thought about the daughter she had lost. I suspect she did every
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