Stayed too long at the party

March 31, 2005 | Category: In My Life

I have a friend in trouble.

She is the most decent, honorable, and professional person I know. Her career is to help the most disadvantaged children in the state. Look in the newspaper - those horror stories that you read about children who have been found to be abused or neglected in the most heinous ways? That's when my friend's phone rings.

Unfortunately, her mentor and boss slowly lost his scruples along the way. And a sterling example of everything a private welfare agency should be was eaten away until only my friend was left to champion the ideals she still holds.

She knew something was going very wrong. Like a distant bell that would get loud and then fade again.

About 2 years ago the emergencies - no money for payroll, overdue audits - started coming every few months. She'd rally and rant until the boss would clean up everything. We, her friends, would cluck our tongues and suggest that maybe, just maybe, she ought to build an exit strategy.

And then, in the last year, the slippery slope got slicker. And she ended up taking out a bridge loan to keep things going for a while. But she soon realized it was irrevocably over.

Tearfully, she closed up shop and cobbled together care for the clients still in her agency's care. Meanwhile, her boss was hard to find and his stories harder to believe.

Her savings almost gone, her career in crisis. And then the letter arrived from the government, followed by meetings with lawyers and accountants.

And all because she stayed too long at the party. For all the right reasons. For the kids to whom she was the only consistent adult in their lives. For the kids who clung to her, in a sea of beaurocracy. She ignored that distant bell.

And it may end up bankrupting her and her future.

As we talked today, with tears in our voice as we tried to reasonably walk through best-case and worst-case scenarios, I couldn't help but see the parallels. Dressed up in neon and bouncing on that trampoline, I'm pretty sure the whole planet could see them.

"I don't want to admit..."

"It's OK."

"It's not the same."

"I know."

"I mean, we're talking about..."

"We're going to get through all this the best we can."

And I couldn't believe that she was comforting me at a time like this, selfish bitch that I must be.

She wanted to hear about the latest fight CD and I had, and how we're losing ground an inch at a time. It took her mind off the quarter million dollars in back corporate taxes and fines that she can't possibly pay and frankly shouldn't have to.

Then we cried some more, and yelled, and thought up fundraising ideas (would anyone pay to see me naked in a calendar?) and ridiculous notions (she is so NOT moving back in with her mom!).

And I love her. And she loves me. And we are messy, fallible women. Who stay too long at the party.

But for all the right reasons.

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