"Joy cometh in the morning"

Anyone who has ever lost a close friend knows how crushing it can be. Friends are the very heartbeat of life. They are worth more than anything mere money can buy.

My life has been blessed with friendships that have spanned over 50 years, so we must be doing something right. Oh, sure, I've lost friends before, but they were what I see now as conditional or situational friendships: workmates whose lives go on once you leave a job; friends who leave you after a divorce because they cared more for your spouse than for you. It happens to all of us for one reason or another. Sometimes one of us just outgrows the other. But I've never let go of a friendship lightly, never let one friend replace another. 

So it's painful to lose the person you've grown closest to, the one you've shared your stories and your dreams with, the person you've counted on to be there for you. As with a death, a lost friendship cries out to be mourned, and grief is as unpredictable as happiness. While I want to remember and cherish the good times, my better angels don't always prevail, especially not when I'm being left behind for a better, more promising friendship.
This is what has happened in the past few weeks. Granted, I could have accepted a lesser, diluted version of that friendship, but it seemed inauthentic and made-up to me, a kind of fool's gold. Just as friends should not let friends drive drunk, I don't think that true friends ask us to settle for leftovers while they feast on new and better friends. And God forgive me if I've ever done that to one of my friends.

So there's a grief process that moves us through denial, anger, and finally acceptance. When I found this little quote above, I realized that a true friend will find and appreciate everything about me. And who wants or needs less than that?

I'm fortunate to have friends like that. And even as I grieve and bury the bones, they've been there to make sure I'm okay -- to love and support me. It's a huge gift to be reminded in the dark hours what true love and friendship are like.

The really hard part is wishing that old friend happiness. I'm not there yet. But it hurts less each day. And maybe, just maybe, I'm the one who took the relationship for granted, even though I was always grateful for it. Perhaps I wasn't sufficiently grateful, and the fault is mine.

Life goes on. The river flows where it will. And I want to believe in the words of Psalm 30, which promises us that "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."