There is a graveyard of lost friendships in my mind that I often visit. It is always there, very much in close proximity, but in the rush hour of life, one seldom gets to sit down and say, “Come now, let me visit the graveyard of forgotten friendships. Let me wander about the gravestones and see what my long lost friends are doing, what stages of their lives and deaths are they in.”

In the graveyard of lost friendships, there is a tree that blossoms all year round. On its bark are engravings of forgotten vows, words exchanged in writ, thoughts carved in wood, promises faded with time. It is always strange for me; every time I revisit this tree and run my mind’s fingers over these words, these exchanges of sentiment, I think to myself how we said these things thinking things will never change. The conviction was convincing and reassuring…and yet, time does what it does best: change.

“If friendship is like a cathedral, then forsaken friendship is like roofless ruins…”
― Hilary Thayer Hamann, Anthropology of an American Girl