Missing

Have you ever felt sad with a strong sense of having lost something precious, something so very close to the heart that now that it's gone, there's a void that can't be filled by anything else?


Sometimes, when you come across old photographs, familiar yet forgotten faces smile up at you... people you didn't realize you were moving awar from, heading in the other direction until the last thred of connection between you snapped. Great friends are almost impossible to find, I've now realized. You can't just set out looking for a friend. The only way we come across these amazing people who leave their marks on us forever, is by pure chance. It's only when - and if - you lose such friends that you realize that they couldn't ever be replaced, no matter how hard you look.


I had a great friend in school. We'd talk for hours if we could, about everything on the face of Earth, just like girls do. We'd giggle, we'd laugh, tell each other silly stories. We'd go around together, and while to others we were 'close friends', we never ventured to refer to each other as a 'best friend' ever. Maybe that had something to do with a sort of fear our generation has of fortifying relations. We always want to keep the backdoor open, just in case.


Still, that isn't what happened in my friend's case. After school ended, we parted ways - she stayed on at the school for A-levels while I went into the Pakistani Intermediate system. Somehow, we kept contact during those two years, but it was mostly because I could relate to her stories of school, some common friends who had stayed back, old teachers and school events. Alongside, I'd keep hoping that she'd be serious about a common University... dental surgery... so we could go together and pick up where we left off in school.



I don't know why I wasn't perturbed when she decided to head towards textile designing. Well, maybe it was because she loved talking about clothes, designing them, accessorizing... not that I wasn't too, but I wanted to pursue science as a career. She went on to another University and it still didn't pinch me that I was really missing something.

Maybe that was because I thought I'd make new friends. Yeah, make. It's very easy to make friends.

'Assalam-o-alaikum!'
'Walaikum-Salam.'
'Are you new too?'
'Yeah, what's your name?'
'Ameera, and yours?'
'XYZ...'
'That's a nice name, what does it mean?'

You could have dozens of XYZs and not one single good friend...the good friend you left somewhere in the past. Sure, I know lots of people in University, I go around with a group of two old college friends but there's always something missing there.

I've been thinking about that great friend for a few days now. I called her after I returned from Hajj in January and since then, I've maintained a policy of 'it's her turn, she'll call'. Is that right? Should we be so rigid, so strict, so lost in protecting our own delicate ego that we let go of something much more valuable?

I even saw her in a dream, where I was making her feel guilty about not calling me and I actually made her pick up a phone too call me right when I was infront of her. Pure selfishness, some would say. Maybe they're right. But then, I also wonder, she's got loads of new friends... cool new friends in her textile design university. Why would she want an old friend when she's got so many around already? There's sadness there, with some of that hateful green tint - jealousy.

I've changed in soneways too... I guess that was a different me back in school. A religious awakening during college rid me of some Islamically undesirable things in a person... it certainly changed, to some degree, my view of things. Exchanging romantic novel story-lines, listening to music, being purely materialistic... these became things of the past. Did I become a dull, serious person? No, not at all... but to those who knew me as I was in school, I was different. Too different to integrate.

So, it ends like this. I miss this friend so much that I've thought a lot about her these past two days. She was online on MSN but my mother was chatting with my father, so she left a message: 'Hello.....' That was it! Just one word, no more. I was annoyed but I was touched too. She hadn't forgotten me completely and she couldn't find any words to say anything either.

Now I've made her a card and I'm going to write her a letter with it. I'm going to send it to her as a surprise. We used to write silly letters to each other in school. It won't be the same as it used to be but I'm not going to make the same mistake again. I'm not going to let ego and silly things like that get in the way of a chance to talk to her again.

If you've got a friend you know you should have called a long while back, and if you feel the slightest pinch of missing that friend... pick up the phone and call right now. You won't know it and it would be too late. All that you'd have left would be a few photographs of happy times, all in the past.