Return To Sender

I lost my friend Ed and I'm a little sad about that.  Don't worry- it's not loss in the sense of the final loss, it's more like he moved and forgot (at least I hope it wasn't intentional) to tell me.

I've known Ed since my freshman year of high school.  We met in our Russian 1 class and have been friends ever since.

Just about the time I moved to the DC area he was leaving to start the next stage of his life out in California.  Even with all the miles between us we've always stayed in touch- mostly through the US Postal system.  Oddly enough we were never the emailing types. I've never known his email address nor has he known mine.

We're not Facebook friends either, but that hasn't stopped us from keeping up with each other over the years.  I visited him a year after he moved to LA and he showed up to surprise me for my 30 birthday.  We've kept up by phone and a few years ago I traveled back to our hometown to meet him for lunch while he was in town visiting his father who had taken ill.

As we got older and jobs, marriage and children came into the picture the chunks of time between letters and conversations grew longer.  No matter how long the time span I always felt that my good friend was out there somewhere.  Physically he was 3, 000 miles away, but it never felt that far.

And then the Christmas card I sent in early December came back to me with a stamp that read Return to Sender.

I'm sure we'll reconnect soon.  I've got a few old phone numbers that I think I can use to get in touch, but for now 3, 000 miles seems too far away.