I will forgive you, my forever friend, for leaving me with a Miss-Canada-Pageant mess. Your mother called for you to go home and you went. So did Sherry-Lynn. In my itty bitty bedroom, ever piece of clothing in the closet was in a tangled heap. All the tops, skirts, grade-school dresses and corduroy jumpers of our beauty pageant parade were looking, then, less glamorous and more like the most unfair chore in the world – for the second runner-up.

I will forgive you, my beloved friend, for playing that night-o’clock-in-the-morning prank on me. It was during one of our non-stop sleepovers at your house. You or Rosy woke me up in the dark and told me my mom had called to tell me to go home.

I went across the street to my house, where everyone was – of course – asleep. (When I tried that one on my brother, he wasn’t amused either.)

Will you forgive me for laughing so hard I peed on your kitchen floor? I guess that’s what they call busting a gut laughing. We must have been 10 or so and have guzzled a gallon of pop. Those were the days when we’d tralala through summer and take bottles through the coin laundry into Dahl’s store.

We did a lot of laughing then. And fighting. And hating each other. And whispering gossiping talking on the phone wishing giggling dreaming of the future.

At this time of year we jumped in leaves piled high, played outside in the dark, tossed them in the air and at each other. The crunch, the smell, the leaf bits on fingers I remember.

I’m sorry.

I didn’t know. With all the technology at our fingertips now, it still shocks me how easy it is to be disconnected.  We never ever imagined the internet.

I wasn’t on Facebook for a while, wasn’t online at all, was swallowed whole by the full-frontal onslaught of reality, and so.

I’m sorry for letting you down.

He was so very proud of you.

He was a good man.

He loved you dearly.

So do I.

oxo