Have been told that an old friend is seriously ill. It's not been said in so many words but from my understanding of her illness, she's not going to live through it. She has no family, no longterm partner to support her.
We were close for several years. She wasn't very nice to me - in fact she was a complete bitch more frequently than I could cope with. Eventually I decided I didn't want a friend who wasn't kind at least some of the time, and stopped calling her. And she never called me, and so we lost touch.
So............... I feel really sad to hear she is ill. I wish I could make her OK. It's a fucking tragedy for someone to be terminally ill at such a young age and I can only imagine what she is going through.
On the other hand, I have to be honest, if she was not ill I would not want her back in my life. I have never regretted cutting contact.
I just don't know whether it is right and just the proper human decency thing to do, to contact her and see if I can do anything to make her unthinkably horrible situation more bearable. Considering I wouldn't want to see her again if she were well.
If this is one of those situations that's painfully clear from the outside, then please, tell me what the right thing to do is.