“A friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
To the person who taught me what true friendship means, Phillip, my friend, thank you. Thank you for offering me the seat next to you, for always asking if my “baon” is good, and for offering yours anyway. Decades after, I realized that you were the one who taught me what kindness and compassion meant even when I didn’t fully understand them then. Wherever you are, I hope you continue to spread your kindness to more people.
When we were young, we were primed to make friends. The culture of camaraderie was instilled in us at a very young age. Do you still remember your kind seatmate who offered you their lunch when you were sad? As kids, the concept of small kind gestures may not be as clear and concise, but whether we understand it or not, we know one thing for sure, when it comes to a friend, some forms of kindness are not intended to be understood; they are meant to be felt.
As we grow older, we create a certain brand of friendship with others. We learn to choose who we associate ourselves with. We slowly grasp the idea that friends are forever; they should last eternal. But as we move along, we lose some people. We lose the ones we thought we’d never lose. For whatever reason, they disappear in our lives. Sometimes, we learn the hard way that people come and go, and that is fine; that is normal. We all take different paths in life, and as we move along, we learn that we do not need a lot of friends in our lives.
Know when a loss is truly a loss
When we remember a lost friend, we also have to gauge whether it is really a loss. As the direction of our lives change, so do the people in them. We all journey in life, and we have to let go of certain things along the way. That includes friends that no longer fit in our lives. Letting go of a meaningless connection is healthy. They make our journey lighter as we leave some weight off of our backs.
Losing a friend that used to mean so much to us is difficult. But sometimes, we need to let go of some things to grow. Maybe we were both in a small pot. Our roots will eventually grow and would require more nourishment. Staying together will just hamper our growth, so we had to be separated. We have to let go of each other to grow.
Nothing is truly gone.
But how do we settle with the idea of losing the ones we shared so many memories with? Maybe we never really lose them. Perhaps, as time goes by, some friendships evolve and manifest in different ways. We may say that as our priorities shift, some people in our lives change along with them. But the truth is, if a friendship is so pure and true, whether you constantly talk to them or not, if it was true then, why wouldn’t it be true now?
I bumped into Phillip after decades of no communication. He has grown to be a fine man—successful, yet he remained humble. I could no longer remember the last time we spoke as friends. I do not even remember how our friendship fell apart or if it really did fall apart. True to his form, seeing him again taught me another lesson—some things and people in our lives find their way back to remind us that nothing is truly gone.
So maybe, just maybe, instead of thinking that we are losing our friends, we should start thinking that we never really lose them. They’re out there somewhere, in some forms, still holding the torch of our friendship with them. It’s just that the light is too far for us to recognize it. But that also means we have gone a long way towards fullness.
In distance we thrive together
Our friends are our North star. Whether we know it or not, they lead us to paths we never knew we’d cross. Some of these paths eventually lead to better versions of ourselves. Isn’t that what friendships are for? They help us reach our full potentials and become the people we are meant to be.
As we grow from our separate pots, we reach a certain height that allows us to see each other. One would start to bloom with flowers, and the other may start bearing fruits. We then see that the ones we thought we lost were never really gone. They’re just out there somewhere, from a distance, growing the same way we do. And within that distance, we learn to appreciate the lesson that, after all, we never really lose anything; instead, we gain something from having our own pots to bloom wherever we are planted.
