To everything there is a season

This week, I lost a friend. The pain was immense and it took me completely by surprise. I didn’t just lose a friend; he was my confidante, my mentor, my best friend. I didn’t lose my friend to death; he is very much a live. He is just no longer my best friend. He has become something else; what? I do not yet know. Although we assure each other that we will always be best friends, I know this is fallacy. For I will never talk to him freely again, I can never walk the streets in a warm summer evenings with him again, I can never cry in his arms again, I will never call his home my home again, I will never see the world through his eyes again.

He has been a true friend; he has shared my best moments and seen me through my worst. He has been loyal, kind, generous and he accepted who I am. I took it for granted that he would always be there, that he will always be my best friend. Now, my best friend and I will settle into polite friends with polite smiles and engage in polite conversations; too scared to dig deeper, too restrained to say what we really mean, too afraid of being misunderstood; we will share polite news of the weather, our jobs, new family additions, but never about our pains, our meaningless lives, our newly found hopes, yearnings, happiness, loneliness and disappointments; instead we will exchange scanty impersonal emails and awkward embraces.

I wonder if he will walk the cool tropical forests and remember me, if he will travel the world and think of me. Will I ever cross his mind, will he ever miss me? I know I will. Someday I will go through the fields where we once walked together, the birds will still sing, but they won't sound as sweet as they did before. I will stare at the moon and think of the day everything changed.

But the wise king of Israel once said that there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven.

A time to kill and a time to heal
A time to tear down, a time to build

A time to weep and a time to laugh
A time to mourn and time to dance

A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together
A time for embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

A time for search and a time to give up
A time to keep and a time to throw away

A time has come to part, to walk away, a time has come to pursue new dreams and callings. I have nothing to reproach him with and he will live in my memory as the best friend I have ever had.

Farewell friend. I have been truly blessed, honoured and proud to have known you in the appointed time. May your new life be a blessing to others the same way your old one was to me.