The boundaries of friendship and forgiveness

I dreamed last night of a person who has not been in our lives for about a year now. A friend of my husband's showed up out of the blue after a few years of no contact and came a fairly permanent feature for a few months. He even brought his girlfriend to town and eventually moved into our neighbour's basement apartment when his other option fell through. We vouched for him - having known him for over a decade, besides, the guy is smart and well educated with a few years more experience than us.

Things were a little tense with our neighbour from the beginning - soon after moving into the apartment with thier big dog, they adopted several ferel cats. They certainly were not tidy folks and they started getting behind on payment. We saw less of them, they seemed to be busy working and such.

One day they up and disappeared. We heard that his mother suffered a sudden heart attack in London. Strange thing was, they both went and took all the animals with them. Never to be seen again. Our neighbour as thier landlord tried to contact them for what they owed and to come retrieve thier personal things. Any successful contact soon evaporated. I can understand if they didn't have the $ or were greiving, but she is a reasonable, compassionate individual (a nurse) and I know if they had the desire they could have come to an agreement.

Weeks passed and my husband was unable to let go of the hopes that his friend would somehow resurface. He bagged up thier clothing and computer and all of it is in our attic. Waiting. Still. He spent a whole day hauling the filth that was the way they left the place out to the curb, and our neighbour had already spent a lot of time cleaning when they first left. I felt awful, and so angry. What kind of person does this - puts a friend in this postition who had saved thier ass from sleeping on the street? What kind of person is so transient that they walk away from all thier belongings just to avoid conflict? Only divorces seem to warrant this kind of behaviour!

We have never heard from him since. The kicker of the story is that a few months later another friend of my husbands, a bachelor who had walked away from his own apartment in a similar fashion and was living on our couch, moved into my neighbour's same apartment. This time she offered and I washed my hands of all consequence. I was elated to have this guy on someone's couch that wasn't mine and he did have a good job, but he had been staying under false pretenses (at least to me) that our house was only a temporary arrangement -meanwhile he had no place else to go. Anyway I think it has worked out okay, my neighbour has a handyman whenever she needs one.

It's hard to imagine not having any family to go to when in need - I guess I am fortunate. At the same time you would think the value of a good friend would motivate you to act in such a way not to damage the relationship entirely. I am sure that someday he will show up again, and after a few beers it will all be water under the bridge- unless my neighbour catches wind of them.

This post was prompted by a dream I had last night - we had been invited to thier party?stag? and I popped in to say that my husband wasn't likely to come after all that had gone down. They were tearful and apologetic citing $ and grief and other issues. I was angry and I all but yelled at them - all the while thinking, how far can I go and does it matter? I think we all ended up having dinner in the end.