Don't Leave a Friend Hanging (or with a broken arm)

There are some things that you really should not give up on. A marriage is one example, or a job, or staying awake while driving, etc. Of course, there are always exceptions (except for maybe that last one), but we should all know the difference between when it’s okay to drop something, and when you really just need to struggle through until you make it. I learned this the hard way (actually, my friend did).

Being that I grew up through a homeschool program, I and a good number of my church friends would learn biology from a nurse, who was a family friend and one of the ladies that also went to my church. We would go to her house and do things like frog and sheep’s eye dissections, look at live gold fish under a microscope to see their pulsing veins, learn how to identify and press flowers, found out what our blood type was, and other such things. After class, we would go play in the tree house that she had in her backyard, which once belonged to her now grown-up son.

The tree house had a rope ladder that went up through the middle of the floor, and even though it was sturdy, it was relatively difficult to climb up on. I had struggled many a time on my own before, but today I managed to get to the top and was goofing off with several of my friends who had also climbed in.

One of the girls named Katie, who was making her way up the ladder, was obviously having a bit of trouble. I, being slightly older, figured I would give her a hand and help pull her up. However, I was not expecting it when she let go of the rope completely and gave me both her hands. The rope ladder was being pushed forward by her feet, so much so that it wasn’t holding very much of her weight, and instead relied on the strength of my arms. To be honest, I don’t know if I would have had the ability to pull Katie up or not, but the position I was in was so awkward that I simply was not ready to bare that much weight.

All I remember was feeling her fingers slip from my hands and watching her fall, probably a good seven feet, back to the ground. She landed flat on her back and the wind was knocked out of her. I remember thinking about how hard her head appeared to have hit the dirt, and I instantly felt terribly sorry. Katie immediately burst out into tears and clung to her arm, which seemed to be causing her the most pain. Our teacher/nurse came out and checked on her, eventually having her mother come to get her. All the while I was feeling very guilty, and didn’t know what to tell her (sorry I dropped you from a tree house?). Instead I got away from everything that was going on, and practically hid from Katie’s sight as her mom took her out to the car. I was scared to death that she would blame me for her injury, would be angry at me, wouldn’t forgive me.

Instead of saying I was sorry I just avoided her. A week later I found out that she had broken her arm, and I wondered if it was clear in her mind that I was to blame. I just lived with the guilt, although I told my mother that it was my fault the poor girl broke her arm, but my mom didn’t really understand what I meant. Any friendship I had with Katie quickly faded away. I thought about going up to her and apologizing on many occasions but figured it was too late by then. I remember a few years later, when we finally did interact again, we were in the same class and she asked me what my name was. She had forgotten me completely.

I guess it’s obvious, but what I regret most about the situation was my inability to hold onto her. If only I had tightened my grip, or asked for help, or told her to still hang onto the rope with one hand, I would have kept her from falling. But in that split second the only decision I made was to give up. I had given up on holding onto her literally, and further down the road I also gave up on asking her for forgiveness.

This incident taught me one of two things, the first being that you shouldn’t let your guilt get in the way of repentance. Katie was always a nice girl and I’m sure she knew that I hadn’t meant to hurt her, but she was probably just waiting for me to come up and say some sort of apology. A sincere sorry may have been enough, and even if it wasn’t I would have at least known that I had tried to apologize. My saying something wouldn't have caused her any more harm, and it certainly would have helped my conscience, but instead I just bit my tongue and let our friendship curmble to dust.

The second lesson I learned was to not help people into tree houses.