Outliving A Friend Who Should Have Lived Longer

I'm still here and she is not. 
She was the friend who wasn't a friend for a while ...
until she was again.
The friend who made me consider the depth of friendship...its endurance. 
She broke my heart and then helped to rebuild it. 
Together, we learned that love damn well does mean having to say you're sorry.
We learned that, sometimes, that's enough.

She was the friend who reminded me that love can be punctured...
wind can blow right through it.
That's when you expect it to fall...
but the holes actually make love stronger.
It can withstand fury.
Together, we learned that love will bow without falling.
 
Tsunamis came and rivers raged across our landscape.
We were as a raft, tossed and turned,
sopping wet, but still useful...
still crossing the sea, headed toward land.
Together, we learned that love floats.

She was there when my life ended.
No, not my actual life,
the life I lived. 
And she was there when life started anew. 
Actual life carries on in spite of the deaths we experience.
We carried on together, even when the life we shared was done,
ever in one another's hearts,
ever on one another's minds. 

And then one day, she was gone.
 
In some ways, nothing has changed.
The sun still rises and the wind still blows.
The sea continues to creep across the world.
I still think of her...
I still love her.
But nothing will ever be as it was. 
She would tell me that is as it should be. 
"Change is the reason we exist."

But this is a change that came too soon,
a lesson I do not wish to learn. 
I'm still here and she is not.
She was my friend. 

© Stephanie Mesler 2018