She would write: “Your Friend Always” on my birthday card.  But for the last five years I haven’t heard from her.  She may be living anywhere in Canada.  Or, God forbid, she might be dead.

I long for the simple times of childhood.  We had sleepovers. We went to Girl Guide camp together.  We played in the park across from her home.

When we got older we went to the same university and shared an apartment. I bought purple candles for the tables at her wedding.

I was surprised when she married at twenty one.  Many people thought that she married for the romance.  I liked her husband.  Pretty soon, the couple had four children.  My friend made me the godmother to her first born daughter.

But there were cracks in our friendship during our twenties.  We would fight. We would fight.  Big blowouts.  Sometimes when I rang up I could hear her yelling in the background.  She seemed to be unhappy.

But when I really needed my friend:  when I was in the hospital, my friend  and her husband drove three hours to come to  come and visit me.

When we were in our thirties, my friend and her family of four children and a husband moved to Saskatchewan.  They may as well have gone to the moon.  We still exchanged birthday and Christmas cards but I never saw my friend again. 

Now I don’t know if she is alive.

About three years after the move, my friend left her husband and her teenaged children.  She had met someone else, had an affair and filed for divorce from her husband.

The last letter I received from her, she was teaching and her boyfriend was in prison.  I tried to ring her but the phone was disconnected.  Now I don’t know where she is.

Thanks to the internet I have tracked down four addresses. Thanks for facebppk I found the family. 

Now I feel I must mourn her death and then continue all that was good in my dear driend.  She was the smallest of our friends and the bravest

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.  She put herself through school and I admired her.  I will always miss her.