My Dearest friend,

How I miss you… I believe my life began to unravel when you left me. You left us all. I miss you, every single day. I have to confess I carry a picture of you in my wallet, a real paper picture. The one where you are on a train doing what you loved the most, travel until you became a father. Then you mastered that role and never traveled much again. You did miss India and you wanted so much to start a life there with your family. That was one of your dreams which never came true. But, dream, you told me we must.

Since you left, I have done everything you wanted me to do for myself. I got a divorce, a job in a school, got my own apartment, traveled and finally got a car! I’ve faced many changes and challenges in terror, but I’ve gotten through them and wish I could share all this with you now. Maybe you were watching over me, and leading the way as you used to.

I trusted you as you did me to a fault. I was once told that one day I would have to choose, either him or you. I always chose you. Because friends stay and lovers don’t. You loved me at my worst and at my best and never lost hope, even when I disappeared from your life for long periods in the later years of our friendship. I regret those silences, especially in moments like these when I wish I could call you and eventually laugh out loud, and spend at least an hour on the phone. Although the phone was not our thing, my thing. We needed hours, days to catch up. It was never enough.

Thank you, thank you, Tom, you’re still with me. Whenever the day is cloudy, my first reaction is to want to call you. And I can’t. I just look up and know you are chuckling, telling me to not take anything too seriously. It all comes together in the end. We shall meet again… and yes, I’ll try to dream on…