It is written some people come into our lives for a reason and some for a season.   I have also noticed some do us great good and others cause us unbearable pain, but either way everyone can make us stronger and wiser.   If we learn from them.   The first man I ever really loved was a man named Marc.   Marc was a teacher.   When I first met him he was 80% of what I had looked for my whole life.   It was the other 20% that screwed it up.   When I met Marc he was kind understanding and gentle, little did I know beneath the layers larked a darker meaner more sadistic side.   Marc taught me a few things he taught me to play literati.   He taught me to forgive.   I really think you could have walked up to him and shot him in the chest with a gun and if you said sorry I believe he would have forgiven you.   He also taught me that when you want something desperately it can be pulled away from you at a whim.  

     I wanted Marc to come back to Pa he would not do it, even though he asked me to marry him he would not come back to Pa.   When he realized I would not go to where he was his feelings changed toward me.   He became mentally abusive.   I spent months proving I did not do all kinds of things he accused me of.    I found out later on one of the things he tortured me about they ( he and our other friends) had know I did not do nearly the whole time.   Marc's best friend told me the truth on that.   They did not know he was still harassing me about it.   In his mind it was some kind of warped justice for things he thought I did.   In point of fact I actually did do a few of them but other things I was accused of I did not do.   He left me with post traumatic stress disorder that nearly drove me to suicide.  But because he had taught me to forgive there came a point I was able to forgive him.   At the end of his life we were friends and I was able to morn him.   I also have a moonstone pendent he made in a craft class and sent me to remember him by.   All though his treatment of me nearly drove me to kill myself, another friend stepped forward from the shadows and saved me.

   Mike was someone I played pool with from time to time.   When I was in the deep depression caused by Marc's abuse Mike stepped forward from the shadows and lead me to mare stable mental  ground.   Mike was supportive and he watched out for me and protected me when others tried to drive me away.   It is amazing where you angle will come from, especially when I met Mike he was on a straight outa hell id.   I will never be able to pay him back for what he did for me he did what my closest friends could not do.   He knew and understood when someone is broken inside you do not smash the pieces with a hammer and through them away you get out the emotional glue and help them put their selves back together.    After a decade he is still my friend.   Even though I did a few really stupid things over the years Mike always forgave me.  Like Marc taught me if someone says sorry you forgive.    These two friends are at the opposite ends of the friend spectrum, one nearly killed me and the other saved me.  The thing is knowing them both made me stronger.

     No one can say which has the greater impact good deeds or evil ones but they are both part of who we are.   Without them we would not be who we are for better of for worse.

     Any one ever see ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE?   It is a really old Christmas movie that gives a man thinking of suicide a chance to see how those he loved would have had different lives if he was never born, and how their personalities would be different.  Whether we realize it or not everything we do effects someone.   We may not know who or how but it does.   We all have the chance to change others lives either for the better or the worse.   We can pile onto their burdens till it crushes them or we can be real friends and help them carry it.

     That brings me to another Marc story.   Marc had an on line harem. lol Nearly every girl in literati would go to SL 12   and most of them ended up on Marc's table.   I remember the night I realized people you meet on line are not just (net)  that there are real people attached to every computer.   It was a night Marc and Ruth were arguing>   Ruth was very special to me at that time she knew things about me my own family does not know.  I really wanted to play lit with both of them but Ruth would not come in cause she was mad at him.   I said to her I understand and does not matter if they ever settled it or not I would still be BOTH of their friends.   Next thing I knew Ruth's id was on the table.   I was so happy, and surprised.   I said Ruth you came.   She said yes I came for you just for you.    At that point Marc said what does that mean and    Ruth and I both typed in at the same time I had asked her to come and she did cause friends do things for friends.   It was at that point Marc said to Ruth that he would like to just forget their fight if it was ok with her.   She forgave him and we spent the rest of the night playing literati together.   That night I realized only a real friend will put your wants and needs before their own, and these were my real friends.   That was part of the reason it hurt so bad when Marc turned on me about a year later and kept accusing me of things I did not do.   I knew I was losing a friend.

     The odd thing about friendships is they can be rebuilt even after extreme damage IF ALL WANT IT TO BE SO.   Marc and I did that is why on the anniversary of his death I can morn my friend Marc instead of celebrating the death of the man that mentally abused me.

     There was another man I had know sense I was a child.   He was a friend of the family and we all trusted him.   He would not have lived as long as he did if my mom had know what he did.    It was more important to me to have my mom with me than it was to see him punished for what he did, but I celebrate every year he is dead and burning in hell. 

     I was fortunate I found people that saw the inner me the good me the one worth saving and they threw me a rope when I was falling into a pit of disappear.