A friend of mine said that he’s willing to excuse most behavior under three circumstances: giving birth, getting married and during grief. I’m not so sure I agree.

This past weekend was incredibly awful for me. It was the memorial weekend of the love of my life. I’m partly relieved that it’s over and partly sad, because it means it’s over.

Friday night, I went to a pre-memorial family gathering of all our closest friends. When I got home in the wee hours of Saturday, the day of Male’s memorial, I took my dog out for a walk and found an envelope at my door.

It was a save the date announcement for a friend’s wedding. I opened it, saw what it was and threw it on the dining room table. It still sits exactly where I threw it.

Since then, I’ve asked a few people for their opinions on the matter, since clearly, I can’t be objective, but I haven’t asked you yet, so let me lay out the facts as unemotionally as I can.

I live right next door to one of my oldest and best friends, and his girlfriend of some ten years. Half the time, they’re not even in the same time zone. The other half the time, they’re arguing and making up in a sickly sweet manner–repeat to infinity. They’ve broken up a few times and one of them even moved out for about six months.

I am not too fond of her, but I don’t necessarily dislike her either. We just have nothing in common. We never have been and never will be friends. We tolerate each other, or at least I thought we did.

The night she dumped the save the date thing at my door, her fiancé was with me at the family gathering that she didn’t attend. Her house guests, who flew in specifically to attend the memorial, were also with us, so there’s no way that she forgot about the memorial. She knew exactly where I was and why.

She knew my relationship with Male, maybe not all the nit grit, but she certainly knew that we were very close and that when he visited, he stayed with me, because she lives right next door.

Other than being so obsessed with her own wedding that she somehow completely forgot that everyone in her fiancé’s life, especially me, was mourning a very deep loss, I can see no explanation for the timing of the delivery besides intentional hurtfulness.

Had she had dropped it off on Sunday, I would have thought it gauche, but I also might have understood wanting to hand them out in person to people who were here for the memorial, as long as it was after the memorial.

If the wedding was next month and therefore time sensitive, I might have understood, but the wedding isn’t until November–195 days from the day she dropped the save the date. One hundred and ninety-five days.

Had it come in the mail, I might have been able to excuse it with her not thinking through the date that it might be delivered.

But, none of that is true. She intentionally hand-delivered a save the date announcement to my door knowing full well that I wasn’t home and that I would receive it on the very day of the memorial for the love of my life–a man I will never, ever get to marry.

What am I supposed to make of that? What do you think? How would you handle it?