Dear Buddy

Dear Buddy,

I can't believe it's now been 9 years since you left us for a better place. This was the last picture we ever took together, the last moment I saw you alive. It's been 9 years, but I remember that night well- having dinner at a food court in Penang; some words unspoken but it was clear to me (and I'm sure to you too, my oncologist friend) that this was a goodbye for us for this Earthly world and that soon your battle with cancer would end. I remember our last embrace before we left.

Much has changed, evolved since then, and the world has gotten crazier. I wonder if you'd recognize what was going on if you were here. Who would have thought that we'd ever be in a global crisis from an incurable viral pandemic that would take so many lives and affect every facet of society the way it did?

Much has changed- I'm sure you know she has remarried which is something I'm sure you had wanted for her, to a wonderful chap, and we are so happy for them, for her that she ha found love again. We're supposed to be at the prime of our careers, though admittedly there are days I question if this was the right path for me (and then there are days when I don't). The kids are growing fast, and transitioning from "children" to "pre-preteens" and forming their own opinions and gaining the sort of confidence and independence I never knew at their ages when we were in Malaysia. In that picture, Alli was not even a year old, and she has no memory of you now, though Kris and I talk about you to the girls regularly.

Though it's been 9 years, I think of you much, and depend on those memories of simpler, happier days to get me going. In my darker moments, I find myself confiding in you still in thought an prayer, and once in a blue moon we get to meet again in my dreams. Dreams in which we again visit our favorite post-call hangouts or partake in our Halo marathons.

I miss you buddy. I'm sure you know that. You've touched so many lives on this Earth that your mark here will always remain. Till we meet again someday in a different world, take care.