a friend

thinking about friends brought back memories of another special friend i have.

we have known each other for the longest time and i have seen him passed through some dramatic changes in life. from the very start, i have felt a connection to him.....a very strange feeling of closeness. i could slip my hands through his and spend hours with him, without those boy-girl stuffs getting in the way. we could be with each other without talking or we could talk until the cow comes home. it wasn't those typical romantic love but i felt very close to him, more than i felt with my family.

i was very sad when he moved away but the distance didn't make him less important to me. he did things for me that he would not do for others. that made me felt very special and i thought i meant something to him too. we continued with our own lives but once in a while, we got together and when we do, it is like nothing has changed. i felt the affection and the closeness.

he has gone through a lot. i would love to say that i saw him through each difficult moment but.....i don't think i was there enough for him. i wanted to run to him, hug him and hold him close when his father passed away....but in the end, all i did was call him on the phone and offer my condolence. i wanted to tell him that his sexual preference makes no difference to the affection i feel for him, but all i did was quietly accept his other half. through each hurdle, i wanted to tell him that i will be his friend forever, but the timing was never right. i don't know if he felt the closeness i enjoyed with him or whether he reciprocated that feeling but i have always thought we meant something to each other.

lately, my life was in a turmoil and i needed a friend's touch. when i asked him to come back for me, he asked when i would like him to return home. i was so touched beyond words, you cannot even begin to imagine. no questions, no excuses, just tell him where and when. all these years that we were apart, i felt so relieved that it didn't affect our friendship. no friend has ever done something like that for me. immediately, i didn't feel like i was at the end of my rope anymore. someone was there to hold my hand.

that would have been the most touching story if that was the ending. unfortunately, life isn't usually so kind to me. he never did come back. after all that talk, it was just that, talk. i have since given up and stopped waiting for his return. from this experience, i learned that sometimes people move on.....and they don't look back. it doesn't make him a bad person. i can treasure the memories of our good times together, but that's all there is, for he has gone forward, leaving me still standing there in the past.

i grieve for the friendship that i have lost.