The Friend I Lost

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.
Francis Bacon

I had a dream last night about the friend I lost. It was actually not so much about her as it was a bizarre collage of memories and daily trivia. Japan was mixed in, as it almost always is, and a person who was a friend in high school. At the end, the person from high school morphed into my missing friend, and I woke up feeling sad again.

I met her in graduate school. Being in a small department means you have classes with all the same people. We started and finished at the same time and worked together teaching at the university. We discovered an affinity for chili cheese dogs, kitsch, and old movies. I went to Japan and she stayed, but after my first year, she was looking for a job, the Japanese university was looking for a teacher, and she came to Japan. She had the apaato under mine and we had a great time. We'd go shopping at the 100 yen store and enjoy the wonderfully, cheerfully tacky stuff in the shops at the train station.

After Japan, we communicated about twice, and suddenly, all communication stopped. The horrible part is that I don't know why. It's not like we had a big fight. I don't know what happened. I think about it often. Did I say something wrong? Did I do something wrong? What could it have been? I know I was late sending a birthday present, but would that cause a person to end a friendship?

Maybe I was wrong about the strength of the friendship. Maybe it was one of those things that meant more to me than it did to her. I counted her as one of my very best friends, and trusted her with things very few other people know. She knew not just the public person, but also the flawed, cracked clay pot under the glaze. Maybe, ultimately, the imperfections were more than she could tolerate.

I have tried at least three times to contact her. I've emailed several different people who knew us both, but nobody seems to know anything. I guess I must have somehow done something horrible. I just wish I knew what it was. I keep hoping that one day I'll open my inbox and find a letter from her telling me about her life in the interval, or simply telling me to go to perdition. Anything would be better than the horrible, incomprehensible communication vacuum I'm currently in.

Very simply, I miss my friend. A part of me has been wounded and I don't know why. If ever you read this, my friend, I wish you'd give me the chance to know what it was that I did and a chance to put it right.