Two Friends

Two events occurred this past month. A good friend turned a year older and she continues to be happily single on most days. The other one lost her husband to a serious illness. She has a kid a few years younger than mine. Both women were my classmates and at such different places in their lives that it is hard to imagine we once had a lot more in common than our age. I thought about the last time we were all together - so many years ago. Our hopes and dreams in life had been a lot closer back then even though we were very different people. We all wanted to grow up, be independent and begin our lives separate from our parents. The future was fuzzy and unknown - we could only see as far as the next step and sometimes not even that. 

Both of my friends have followed their real passions and are very happy doing what they do for a living. Yet the passage of time has carved them into entities completely unlike each other and unlike me. And we all continue to diverge even further as defining life events pull one person sharply in a certain direction no one else will venture to or know anything about. It made me wistful to think how these women who go back such a long way in my life may have felt alone on a birthday or a funeral despite being surrounded by people old and new to their lives. I was reminded of this Orson Welles quote:

We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.