I have developed a funny habit of picking up broken things. It started with myself. Perhaps I try to do for others what no one else did for me.

I tried real hard to be a pessimist with you, not because I truly shared the sentiment, but because it didn’t seem right for you to have to be alone in your brokenness.

You were, mostly, honest about yourself (I still have a secret of yours that I will respectfully continue to carry). You didn’t hold out hope for a happily ever after for yourself, but fought really hard for me to see that I could have one, and with someone more whole than you. It took me years to understand, to see that you were right.

One late night in the fall we spent together, we were commiserating in low whispers about the absurdity of love. It was a cold night and you shivered in some funny way that reminded me of a dog shaking off some raindrops or something. I took to calling you Astro, after the dog from the Jetsons. Just between us, as an inside joke. In return, you called me something relating to the cat from the Flinstones, but I can’t quite remember what it was. I won’t look it up for fear it will make me even sadder than I already am for you.

The vintage cartoons were a nod to our age difference. You were 24 years older than me. I gave you a detailed drawing I’d made of Astro for Christmas that year; you said it was the most thoughtful gift you’d ever gotten. I wonder what ever happened to that drawing, if it was found among your things afterward.

Our friendship rather abruptly ended right around the time the rest of my life began. Maybe that was how it was supposed to go. Maybe I couldn’t be where I am if I’d tried to keep you. Maybe somehow you knew that. I don’t like the idea that our elders are supposed to be respected by default and their perspective is inherently correct; I don’t believe that at all. But think I’ll give you this one, posthumously.

We were friends (well, more than friends) almost ten years ago, for a time. I haven’t spoken to you since that time and you died about four years ago, a fact I found out recently almost as an afterthought. You were never an afterthought to me.

You’re gone, but my heart still knows your name. I have a list in there, of the people who’ve made an impact on me (in the right ways, mind you). I carry that list, and therefore those people, with me. And while I know it may not seem like it based on the way we ended things, I am not sorry your name is on that list.