Farthest Away Friends

There are people we’ve let drift so far out of reach that we’re afraid to even dial the number.
Not because we wouldn’t know what to say — but because we’d feel too much when they answered.

These are the friends who once meant everything, but now… live elsewhere.
Not just geographically, but emotionally. In a past that’s still warm to the touch, but unreachable all the same.

We don’t stop caring. We just stop talking.
The messages grow further apart.
The check-ins become once-a-year texts — birthdays, maybe.
And eventually, even those slip away.

Still — if their name came up in conversation, something inside us would flicker.
Some protective thing would awaken, like we’ve just remembered we left the stove on in another lifetime.

You remember how their voice would dip just before they said something serious.
You remember what it felt like to be known in the way only they could know you.
You knew each other best a long time ago, in a place far, far away — not just another town, but another version of life.

And maybe you remember the last conversation — not because it was momentous, but because it wasn’t.

There was no fallout. No big rupture.
Just time, doing what it always does.

It’s hard to describe the grief that comes from that kind of distance.
There’s no obituary for a friendship that went quiet.
Just the slow, unspoken realization that you may have already lost something — quietly, slowly, and without permission.

Still, you hold them.
In fragments. In photos.
In the way you still remember their area code.

And sometimes, when a phone rings in the other room, some irrational part of you still hopes… it might be them.

Maybe that’s all the farthest away friends really need — not a call, not a reunion, not a catch-up session.
Just a quiet reminder that you remember. That you’re still listening, even from a long way off.

“Maybe today’s the day you forward something small — not to say everything, but just to say: you mattered.”

Maybe today is the day you send them something — not a grand letter, not an apology, not a rehash of everything unsaid.
Just something small. A gesture. A note. A link.
Something like one of the stories over at Still Stories.

Maybe you say:

“I saw this and thought of you.”
“You crossed my mind today.”
“You’re still part of my story.”

“I never stopped caring. I just didn’t know how to say it anymore.”

They may not respond.
But they’ll feel it.
And sometimes, that’s enough.

For the farthest away friends, it’s not about picking up where you left off.
It’s about reminding them — and yourself — that it mattered.
That it still does.

— Lawrence

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