The Buttinsky

Once there was a pretty black haired girl.  In her small elementary school, she became friends with three other girls.They laughed and giggled together, whispered about their first crushes, and stuck together like glue through middle school, high school, and college.

The girls grew into women. They started careers, and one by one they each married and began having children: all except the pretty black haired woman. She moved back into her parents' home when they became elderly and infirm to help care for them. She was also picky in her romances, and began to guard her heart carefully after it was broken several times, and so she was unmarried  into her forties.

The group remained close, although it was different for her. She did not have children to bring with her when they visited; she did not have a husband to laugh with, or complain about, or go home to each night, as the other friends did.

Then a tragic fire claimed the life of both her parents, and although it wasn't her fault, she blamed herself. Her friends continued to include her, to call her, to invite her places, but she still came home to a house each evening filled with only memories and regrets.

And she ate. And ate. And continued to eat. Food assuaged her pain and guilt. She refused to visit the doctor, even though her breathing became labored, her head pounded, and she was now over 150 lbs. overweight on a body that stood 5'1". She told her friends of having dizzy spells and other frightening symptoms. The friends told her of different diets,brought her healthy foods, invited her to home exercise programs and gyms with them, but none interested her.

The friends got together after they found out their pretty black haired friend had blacked out in a parking lot, although she still refused to go to the doctor. They were afraid she would die, and it would be soon. They decided an intervention was in order to save her life.

They strategized the best way to handle it was to get the one friend in their group, Buttinsky, who'd also battled obesity and come out healthy and fit, to talk with her, to lay out the facts before her kindly but without adornment. They wanted her to know they loved her too much to let her die. They would all be there together during the intervention, but Buttinsky would take the lead.

Buttinsky and the others met with the pretty black haired friend. They each told her all the things they loved about her; her kind spirit, her generous heart, her dry sense of humor. Buttinsky told her they knew her hurts and heartaches and they'd seen her gaining so much weight.They were desperately afraid she was going to die too young. Buttinsky told her because they loved her, they would be there every step of the way with her. They would find whatever help she needed, but she couldn't delay any longer.

It did not go as the friends had hoped. The pretty black haired friend yelled, and cursed, and cried. She felt betrayed and unloved and judged, all the things that were the opposite of what they had intended. The pretty black haired friend won't take their calls now, refuses to speak to them, and has blocked them from her life in every way possible.

They wait, and hope, though, that she will understand how desperately they want to see her healthy and whole. Buttinsky especially wonders what being a true friend really means. And she hopes she didn't fail at it.