I know an extraordinary amount about Jerry.
I know about his family and the complicated relationships inside it. I know the people he has lost and which dates on the calendar are hard for him. I know how he became a Christian, how he found his way into ministry, and how some of his beliefs changed over time. I know about friendships that shaped him, things he regrets, and things he wishes he had done differently.
I know about his recovery, his therapy, and how much he struggles with ADHD. I know many personal details that Jerry shared with me over the countless hours we spent together. I also know completely useless things, like his favorite ice cream flavor.
That is only a tiny fraction of it. Jerry told me so much about himself that trying to list it all would be ridiculous. More importantly, it never felt as though I was pulling information out of him. Especially when we were together in person, he seemed relaxed and comfortable being known. We talked about everything, nothing was off limits.
There were times when he withdrew. ADHD was an ongoing struggle and seemed to explain some of his inconsistency and difficulty communicating. I now think there were times when it also became a convenient excuse, but at the time it was simply one of the many things I knew about him.
When he suggested taking a break in June, he talked about what he felt was lacking in himself and what he was able to give. Later in the year, when I came over, realized he was drunk, he told me about getting fired from his job, I was obviously concerned that he was struggling. The next morning, when I asked him directly to tell me what was going on with him, all he said was, “I know you want the truth.”
Near the end, I knew he was not being straightforward with me. His explanation on why he wasn’t available when I needed him did not add up. Eventually that became the disclosure about his other regular partners and all the things he had omitted.
But most of my experience with Jerry was not trying to figure out what he was hiding. It was feeling like I knew him very well. In many ways, I did and still do.
That is precisely why the things I eventually learned were so destabilizing. I did not discover suddenly that Jerry was a stranger, although this thought did cross my mind. Instead I discovered that I could know an incredible amount about someone and still be missing information that mattered enormously to me.
Because I knew him so well, I thought I knew the risks.
I never thought Jerry was uncomplicated. Quite the opposite. I knew he struggled with alcohol. I knew about the DWI and recovery. I knew about ADHD, grief, family problems, therapy, and the parts of himself he was still trying to understand. I knew closeness with him came with complications. I made choices with those things in mind. What I did not know was that I did not have a lot of information necessary to accurately assess the risks.
That is different from expecting someone to tell me everything about their life. I do not expect that. Everyone is entitled to privacy. There will always be things we do not know about other people, no matter how close we become.
But some information is different because another person needs it to make decisions for themselves.
I knew deeply private things about Jerry that had nothing to do with me. I knew his grief, his history, his recovery struggles, his regrets, his health, his faith, and the stories he told about how he had become the person he was.
At the same time, I did not know some of the things that directly affected decisions I was making about sex, intimacy, trust, safety, and what kind of access I wanted him to have to me.
That is the part I understand differently now and have struggled to make sense of.
I knew a lot because Jerry disclosed a lot. I think I assumed that kind of openness meant I had a reasonably accurate picture of the person I was becoming intimate with. Apparently, disclosure and transparency are not quite the same thing.
Someone can tell you very private things about himself and still leave out something you need to know. Someone can be genuinely vulnerable about grief, family, recovery, faith, therapy, or regret while still failing to give you information that would change a choice you are making about your own life.
The amount I knew made it harder to see the significance of what I did not know.
And none of what Jerry told me disappeared when I learned more. I still know all of it. I still know the family stories and difficult dates. I still know the losses, the struggles, the things he regretted and the things he loved.
What changed was what I thought all of that knowledge gave me. I thought it gave me enough information to understand who I was choosing to be close to. I thought I knew which parts of Jerry were difficult and which risks came with letting him into my life.
I thought I knew enough to make informed choices for myself.
That is what I am grieving. Not that I failed to know everything about Jerry.
I am grieving the belief that because I knew him so well, I knew the risks.
I didn’t. Instead I learned just many opportunities to decide for myself what risks I was willing to take were kept from me.