sudden remorse

An old friend who use to be one of Jeff's best friends who was absent through out all of our grieving has reappeared. He didn't want to be excluded from our wedding which i totally planned on not inviting him until he told Jeff that he was going to "show up to the wedding whether he is invited or not, that there is no way he is missing it". I think part of him was actually shocked when he didn't get a wedding invite and everyone else did and it started to sink in to him that we had written him off. In my mind, what he didn't do is unforgivable and while i am nice to him, it will never be the same in my eyes. He disrespected my son, my fiance and my own friendship with him and that is not something that i'll just forget. So he has been around the past few weeks again, trying to come clean? or who knows what.

Conversation

friend:"I wish you and Jeff were having a wedding party, this was one of my last chances to stand up for someone."

thinking: ???? he would have never stood up on Jeff's side, he is delusional.
me: ".... yeah we aren't doing that. But maybe we will take a 'would have been in the wedding party' picture, which would be nice. Julie would have been my maid of honor."

friend: "What about Beth?"

me: "Beth and I aren't friends anymore. We don't talk. She's not even invited to the wedding."
{Beth and i were best friends since high school. I was there for all 3 of her pregnancies, births and raising of her children and was known as "Aunt Laura"/godmother to her middle child}

friend: (confused look) "Really? What happened?"

me: "I almost died in the hospital and she never called me once. Then Truman died and we never really talked much after that. She texted me a few times to remind me that she felt bad that she couldn't call me, ironically because her phone was in her hand. So yeah, the girls and her are out of my life."

friend: (his eyes started to well up with disbelief and tears, as he now is just starting to understand 0.5% of what we have been dealing with) "You loved those girls."

me: "Yeah. We have lost so much.... it's hard for people to really understand. I didn't just lose my son, which is horrible enough on it's own, i lost friends on top of it when we needed them the most. There is so much more that we lost too but-" (stopping myself before jumping into it all)

friend: "Jeff laid into me almost immediately the first time i saw him since and rightfully so. I am so sorry that i wasn't there for you guys, when i should have been. I know what amazing people you two are, and the love that you have for each other and i know that you will have children some day."

thinking: You Know? no one knows anything. Truman might be the only baby we ever have.
me: "We did have children. We had Truman."

friend: "I know, i'm sorry, that's not what i meant...."

me: "Well, it's just hard because, this is all after the fact. I appreciate that you are sorry. It's better late then never but at the same time Jeff had no one and that's not okay with me. Truman was a person just as much as J [his brother who died] was. Any child that we have will be Truman's sibling. We live with missing him every single day and you have no idea what we really went through because you weren't there. and you don't ask."

friend: "I know, I'm sorry."

thinking now: If you weren't there, then you really don't know much and if you don't know much then you don't know who we are any more as people. It makes it all so superficial. Can anyone truly be sorry after the fact when it comes to something like this? I'm not sure. Just because it's so easy to say. Actions speak louder then words. It's not like he didn't know exactly what he was doing.

Just interesting to see the first glimmers of remorse showing from someone who had gone missing.