Friends from middle or high school have that special all-embracing love and familiarity that, sometimes, cannot be matched by newly made friends. The amount of time one knows you, experiences together and the knowledge of your secrets and disposition is comforting — almost as if you were sisters.

The two of you become close with each other’s families, belly laugh together, have sleepovers, shop, party together, call each other for no reason, gossip, celebrate birthdays and holidays together, share each other’s grievances or successes, grow together and most importantly care about and trust each other.

Quality time cannot be replaced and bonds break you to be broken. Sometimes, friends simply grow apart, life gets in the way and your interests change. Other times, something — an event, argument, disagreement — pushes friends apart. Whatever the circumstance, the grief of losing a friendship you’ve never stopped loving is profound.

A fractured friendship leaves a void and a sense of isolation that follows you around like a storm cloud. That friend understood your quirks, dreams and vulnerabilities intimately. The resilience that must follow the loss of a friend is the opposite of what love and friendship are meant for. To me, love and friendship allow for softness and immaturity, openness and understanding.

I had a friend who was beautiful, kind, funny, good-natured, true, lasting and unbounded. This friend supported me through grand life changes and questioned them out of pure worriment. I had a friend who — even through annoyance and disagreement — loved and embraced me for all that I was.

I once had a friend who drove three hours just to come see me in the town I lived in and adored.  

I once had a friend … until I didn’t anymore.

One day our friendship just ceased to exist, like it had plummeted from a cliff, and I don’t think I’ve ever been the same. I still cry and reminisce about happy memories. I reach out occasionally and wish them well or tell them they’re on my mind, but our friendship has, sadly, not been renewed.

Sure, I’ve made new friends — who I love and cherish dearly — but I seem to always long for that familiar and long-lasting friend.

I use the word “friend” so easily as if I’m talking about the weather, but most of the friends I’ve made have become family, and that is the power of kinship. That is what is so painful about the absence of a once beloved and all-important friend.

It seems all too common that people lose friendships to silly technicalities and the busyness of life. People change their minds and grow out of friendships that no longer suit their lifestyle, but I truly believe we never stop thinking about that lost friend; we just keep moving forward with the memory of them in our hearts.

Good friends are all too hard to find, so we must cherish and embrace them when they’re around. We never know when we might lose them.

A great poet, Major Ragain, once said, “Be good. Be true. Be never sad.”

I’d like all the lost friends to remember those words.

Carlina Krajnik is an opinion writer. Contact her at [email protected]