Friendships are sometimes surprising

Something happened at Christmas that took me completely by surprise.  We have new friends who we've known for about a year and we went out for lunch with them.  We had a lovely day but Ash, as usual, was a pale imitation of his old self.  He did however join in, he laughed quite a lot and he looked as though he was enjoying himself.  When we got home I messaged to say what a lovely time we'd had and how much I wished they'd known the old Ash, the one I shared my life with before dementia joined us.  The reply which came swiftly was 'but we love this Ash' and that took me completely by surprise.  I have to admit to being disappointed in this new man in my life.  He doesn't make me laugh from morning to night, he doesn't make me feel good about myself, he hates adventures, he can't cope with surprises; the list could go on and on but the difficulty I now realise is that I continually use the old Ash as a benchmark to measure the new one.  New friends don't have that benchmark and so can accept him as he is and this was a complete revelation to me.  I'm not sure how much it helps me as I'm fairly sure this is not the type of man I would have chosen to share my life with but it certainly helps me to understand, a little, why new friends continue to join us in this new life of ours.


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Comments

Unknown said…
The old Ash was a lovely jovial man and i am sure the new Ash is lovely too just in a different way .
Jane said…
But one I'm struggling to get used to and it's the joviality (is that even a word?) that I miss the most.