“We're not meant for happiness, you and I.”
― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Over the years my friends have provided me with a countless number of happy moments. Some of them stay in touch, and we enjoy trips down memory lane now and again. And I would not trade that for anything in the world.
One of the lessons life so helpfully taught me over the past four decades was that there are no guarantees. Just because someone shares your life today does not mean that they will share it in a year, in a month, in a week, or even tomorrow. Whether it is by fate, or death, or pride, or whatever else, that person can be ripped out of your life in the blink of an eye.
This recently happened to me. Someone who I spoke to on a daily basis and was the cause for many moments of laughs - laughs that started like ginger ale bubbles and grew into something that resembled the audio equivalent of the eruption of Mount Saint Helens - made some unhealthy decisions that led to our not speaking. We are still friends, but have not spoken in months.
When I read this quote, that is the person who immediately sprung to mind. Not the members of my family who I wrote off well before the holidays. Not past loves from before I met my husband. But this one person whose brief interruption into my daily life left a permanent scar on my soul.
Wherever you are, friend, I hope life is treating you well.
