Friendships that you don't drop but wonder

[Roadtrip]

I had a friend who I would consider distant. We struck it off and developed a bond that I wasn't really expecting, seeing she was old enough to be my mom, tho I found in her at that time someone I could talk to and relate to.

We talked about everything and anything. Crying together, laughing together, and I'd try my best to bring her around when she fought depression. She came to visit my family and I hers, but we drifted apart. I started my career and met my then-to-be husband and while we communicated off and on over the years, never to the depth that we once shared, for that I felt somewhat at fault... She made me feel at fault. Perhaps because I was living my life and she had already lived hers. I don't know, but it's part of the reason that I we drifted apart. I would send Christmas cards and Birthday wishes those small gestures weren't returned or even appreciated so that eventually stopped too.

Almost a decade goes by and I found that she had a Facebook page and briefly reconnected with her only to find that she was very sick and undergoing Chemo. She was very weak but in those last few months before the cancer took her, I told her that I enjoyed the times we had together and regretted the time we had lost. She admitted to me she wasn't mad at me, but that she simply wanted me to spread my wings and fly without her if need be, so we were "OK" when the end came.

I still regret not having been open years earlier so we could have had more then a few brief weeks.

In the end... you have to get busy living or get busy dying. No regrets.

Shannon