Friend gone bad - 2004

Betrayal.... backstabbing... money... labor... and a lost friendship....

Let me say one thing right away, throughout my life people have took so many chances to backstab my family that it's amazing that we still start trusting people. It's a miracle that we haven't just started to turn our backs on the world. It's just plain crazy that we still let people get into our lives that we will do just about anything for them!

I was taught growing up that there's good in everyone and when you get a friend you do what ever you can for them. Friends are worth more than money, they're worth more than a lot of stuff, I would put my life in danger, and have done so, just to protect those who I call friends. For once people become friends, they in a sense are a family. You protect those you care for, and are there when they need help, right?

Of course there's different levels of friendship, there's the people you trust everything with, there's the people you just want to talk to every now and then, and there's the people who you only see when they bump into you. There's also different levels of protecting friends, like a real friend would never ask you to go against another friend, UNLESS it's a life/death problem! Though a friend could ask for help if there's a problem right there and you could do what you can to help.

At one point, my mom made a friend and would do anything for this friend. We will call her Greed, and Greed needed help. Greed was around the family for MANY years really, she lived down the block from the old Jewell house. Though, at that time, she became closer friends with my mom, coming and talking to her, calling her and just hanging out with my mom. Greed was broke so my mom would do a lot of stuff for her.

Greed became homeless after a few years because her mom lost the house. There was no money and no way to save the house. So her, her boyfriend and their boy were out of a home. To help Greed, my mom took in some of her stuff, so it wouldn't get lost during the moving from place to place.  Greed lived in a few places like hotels and even was able to get an apartment for a little bit. Greed’s way of income was cleaning houses and her boyfriend's SSI check.

During these years of being homeless and moving around from place to place, my mom would help her with food, rides to places like the doctors and so on. My mom would also help with Christmas time, making sure Greed's boy had what he wanted. While hanging out with my mom, my mom would pay every time she took Greed out to eat.

Greed later moved in with her boyfriend's mom, who had been a big pain the butt in more than one way. Her boyfriend's mother had a car and a license, though would not give Greed any rides and Greed did not have a license.  It ended up being taken away due to unpaid tickets. So even after moving in with his mother, Greed still needed my mom's help. She would tell us how evil his family was and how they would steal her stuff, raise up high bills on the phone and other bills in the house and expect Greed to pay them. And how they would even eat her son's cereal. We heard lots of her stories and were there when she needed to talk and still there when she needed rides.

My mom, knowing life was getting very busy on our end with my Grandma sick, couldn't do as much for Greed with rides and even time wise.  She decided to help Greed out. My mom gave Greed all the money to pay off the tickets so she could get a license to drive again. Though for some odd reason, Greed did NOT get her license back and when asked why, my mom found out Greed used all the money my mom gave her to pay off bills for her boyfriend's mother's house, turn off notices and such. This meant Greed would still need rides and my mom still couldn't give them to her. So my mom took her to the courthouse and paid the tickets in person with Greed, so my mom had paid double what those tickets were worth.

Greed needed my mom's help in many other times, even after my Grandma passed away. Money here, or money there, or food, though as a friend of my mom's, she was willing to help Greed, especially at Christmas time.

Then it all boiled down to what has happened in summer 2004.  My family was still working on this move from the Jewell house into the Goodrich house. We needed help with drywall in the back of this house and with all the help that my mom had given Greed, she didn't feel bad asking if Greed’s boyfriend could help my dad out. Though he wanted to be paid.  My mom said she'd like to be able to pay him $500 if she can afford it.  So he started to help, or what he called helping. He would stand around until my dad would tell him to do something, he would take a million smoke breaks, and coughed a lot and told my mom he couldn't stay for the mudding and sanding because of his health. He did only 21 hours of work for us, if even that, otherwise he was here for 21 hours and every now and then held drywall in place while my dad put in the screws and so on.

My mom gave him $250 for the help, that's a little over $10 an hour.  When my dad heard that he was being paid, he didn't want his help anymore and did the rest of the work himself, which even gave my dad a heart attack from overworking himself.

While Greed did help a few times with moving from the Jewell house to the Goodrich, but not much other than a few boxes here or there and usually she was just a distraction. My mom would do breakfast before work and Greed would go for the breakfast and turn around asking for help with something else. I even have an example of this:

We went to Seros, it was one of the days that I wanted to get some BIG stuff out of the Jewell house.  My mom and sister were with me and we were having breakfast when Greed showed up in her own car. While sitting there at the table having breakfast, I mentioned that I wanted to get a dresser and two desks down out of my old room at the Jewell house and over to the Goodrich house. Though Greed mentioned she had to pay a bill and didn't want to go alone. Somehow, she managed to talk both my mom and sister into going with her. I went to the Jewell house and took the dresser and desks downstairs all by myself, but couldn't get it over to the Goodrich house because my mom had the van and I had to go to work. So a day was wasted because Greed couldn't even go pay a bill by herself. This wasn't the only time she did stuff like that either; knowing we had work we HAVE to get done!

During all of this my brother, proposed to his girlfriend and even planned a wedding for June!  We barely had time to think let alone try to do a wedding right at the time. Though we did it anyway. Greed helped with flowers and planting stuff over at my sister’s house and helped with cleaning. There was no mention of money or anything. But she did help get ready for the wedding shower. The day after the shower, my mom took Greed to Sam's Club and got her $150 in food. It was my mom's way of saying thanks.

A week before the wedding, rumors came our way. I believed them, my brother believed them.  The rumors were from Greed's sister, she told us that Greed was complaining because we never once offered money for helping with the Jewell house or helping with the shower.  She was also complaining because we only gave her boyfriend $250, instead of $500 and so on.  I was pissed at Greed, because she also spread lies and rumors about me to her sister, saying I hate her sister when I BARELY know her sister!

My mom on the other hand, confronted Greed and asked her of these rumors.  Greed denied everything and not long afterwards, Greed got a mobile home.  She needed help moving. So my mom and sister dropped what they were doing and helped Greed and her family move to the mobile home. This was a lot of gas money for the van, going back and forth with all the boxes and my sister was sore from carrying so many boxes.

After the move, her boyfriend called my mom demanding the other $250.  My mom said she couldn't pay that and he got upset. Greed stopped calling my mom, and the friend my mom once would do everything for, started attacking my mom through emails.  These emails were saying that he deserves another $500 from us, that my mom had no right to pay a boy named Brian for helping us move, when Brain only got $50 from us. Saying my mom should not have bought my brother a car and that my mom should not have paid for my brother’s wedding, since my mom couldn't afford to pay her boyfriend the other $250.

After all the food, gas, Christmas food and presents, rides, and everything my mom has done for her, Greed is treating my mom like my mom never once raised a finger to help her! Yet, in truth, my mom did everything to help Greed, it was Greed who doesn't know how to repay favors. Friends don't do things for friends for money, they do favors to help a friend out if they see it is needed.

Greed is saying how my brother and I are not responsible and how her 17 year old daughter is more responsible than us, just because my brother and I don't get over to the Jewell house to help move. Well, where was her 17 year old daughter for her last move and all of those other times when she was homeless.  Where was her daughter? I may not have been at the Jewell house often, but I did a lot as it was. I've been moving, handling trips, and a full time that job that often wanted over time, 68 hours a week was the normal work time.  I had no time to myself, so getting time to go over to the Jewell house was not easy and most of the time I was there, I felt like I was in the way and I didn't know what to do.

Greed was threatening to bring my mom to court now. How did I feel to this... "BRING IT!"  They had no contracts or anything to get money from us. I watch court shows often, so I knew if you don't have a contract, they dismiss the case.

So yes I was a bit upset about this, and I wonder if there truly is good in a lot of people out there. Getting backstabbed is a thing my family knows all too well, but the real question is, if you do good for people that you think are friends, if you spend thousands to help them when they need it, if you're there to support them on more than just money matters, what kind of people can just up and think that they deserve payment for everything when they themselves has only taken from the ones who care for them.

The line was drawn when we got a blackmail letter from Greed.  My mom brought the letter to the police and we got a restraining order on her.  With everything my mother did for this lady, that was how we were repaid.  Blackmail.  Thankfully we have not seen Greed since then, though we have not forgotten.

Have you ever had a friend who did something like this?  Feel free to share your story here.  All Comments and questions are welcomed.