Ghost Story

Waiting on a text that never comes. When a friend ghosts you.

I first met Michael at Parent Teacher conferences the year my son started his freshman year of high school. He was my son’s homeroom teacher and I remember that while it was fall, the room was hot and that he wore a green sweater and sat with his head slightly bent at a big wooden desk. He seemed smart and friendly and not at all intimidated by crazy parents quietly desperate to know what Ivy League college their son would be attending in four years minus a few days, hours and minutes.

How it started

I am fuzzier on how we became friends. It probably started as an email exchange. He claims to have been won over by my description of the moms furiously decorating the quad for graduation with rolls of wired organza ribbon. He was wickedly funny and he thought I was, too. I was charmed and flattered. He taught religion, knew Latin, held an advanced degree in theology from the U. of Chicago and ran the LGBTQ+ student group at the school, a Catholic boys high school, which was no easy feat considering the faculty and admin included plenty of homophobic Opus Dei types who privately gloated he would one day burn in hell.

He loved Anne Lamott, silly animal memes, fried pickles, Italian opera and 70s disco. He was an amazing cook. When he was fired from his teaching job, supposedly for dropping the F-bomb in a group chat with his students but more likely for his liberal ideas and support of the LBGTQ+ community (another gay teacher was fired at the same time), I was outraged on his behalf and introduced him to someone in my circle with deep ties to the NYC private school community, hoping he could help him find a job. I went to hear him sing with a choral group led by another former teacher of my son’s. He wrote thoughtful, wise, well-informed articles for New Ways Ministry magazine about Catholicism and the LGBTQ+ community that I always read and contemplated. I admired him for taking a risk as a Catholic school educator to defend the marginalized and I hoped he might do the same for me one day.

In the meantime, he was truly kind to me. He gave me a jar of velvety homemade salsiccia and e lenticchie for New Year's. When I was fired from my job (see more below), he bought me lunch and patiently let me cry and cry into it.

How it's ghosting

This past summer, he texted me to ask if I wanted to attend a concert with him, The Gospel at Colonus. I was delighted. I’d always wanted to attend an event at Little Island, which I walked to nearly every day, and I’d missed seeing him. He asked what dates might work and I said I was free for all of them except the Fourth of July weekend. A week or so went by without another text, so I checked in. He apologized for being out of touch, said he’d been on a retreat and would get back to me shortly. More time went by. We’d need to buy tickets soon because it was sure to sell out. I nudged again, reminding him of this. No response. Two days later I texted again: “Are u OK?” Silence. One more try, “If you’re ghosting me, that’s fine, just please let me know you’re OK.” Nothing.

If you've read any of my previous writings, you know I am extremely outspoken in my condemnation of Israel since the genocide of Gaza began in October, 2023. I regularly post “Fuck Israel” and words to that effect on social media, as more and more war crimes pile up and more and more Zionists try their shameful best to defend the indefensible, and I make no bones about it. I was fired from my job for posting, among other what I believe to be extremely reasonable things, that people should care as much about dead Palestinian children as they do about Israeli children. Literally, that's what I wrote. Yup, I was a pro-Palestine pioneer, cancelled long before Ms. Rachel for saying exactly what she did.

None of this was new at the time of Michael's invitation. He knows how I feel, and while we never discussed our views on Gaza per se, I respected his support for Kamala when I thought she was a repugnant genocide enabler and we seemingly agreed to disagree. So why was I now ghosted? I don’t know. I blocked his phone number after waiting that last time for him to respond to me because I was hurt and didn’t want to be constantly checking to see if he ever got around to caring that I was.

Forgiveness

I had sent Michael a Christmas card every year since we’d known each other, so this year I decided to do so again. We all fuck up and let humiliation and cowardice keep us from fixing what we’ve fucked from time to time. So I wrote that while I didn’t know what had happened, I still thought of him and prayed for him and hoped his dream of owning a little house on a sunny island in Greece came true. I ended by with a silly pun of the sort we used to share when we were friends. I wanted to make him laugh once more like he did the moment he decided to be my friend.

A few weeks later in response, I received a hastily scribbled card in the mail that read, in its entirety, “May your life be filled with light and love!” I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. Was he insinuating my life was currently filled with darkness and hate? Or was I overthinking it? In any case, it smacked of the sort of “Live Love Laugh” refrigerator magnet platitudes we once would have cackled over together.

I asked my son about it, and he maintained that there had to have been a missed connection somewhere. That he must have tried to apologize or explain his behavior because otherwise the card made no sense. So, I reached out one last time to ask him if that were true and if he had anything else to say to me. Even if it was hurtful: “I think you’re borderline pathological, I am repulsed by your attacks on Israel, I would prefer no one know I ever associated with you.” Etc. I wanted to hear it no matter how difficult that was and I thought as someone who had invited him into my home, bought him Christmas gifts, tried to help him find a job, I deserved that. Again, nothing.

Sorry, not sorry

I will never apologize for standing up for the people of Palestine. I know I have offended a lot of people and burned more bridges than span the mighty Mississippi by taking that stance so forcefully. But if the tables are turned and someone whom I care about offends me, I at least have the balls to let them know it and not run away like an unfriendly ghost who just smelled a fart.

I have stood in a church and spoken these words in unison with Michael many times: “As we forgive those who trespass against us.” And I forgive him for trespassing against me. I really do. I just wish I knew why he did. The silly joke, by the way, was that Kenny Loggins has a new holiday album out and his fans are referring to it as “Highway to the Manger Zone.”  For unto us a child is born, the Prince of Peace. Peace I leave you, peace I give you, Michael. May your life be filled with love and light.

As always, this is dedicated to the children of Palestine.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." —Desmond Tutu