The friendship had run its course—
through elementary, junior high, and high school,
through the Brownie Girl Scouts and countless sleepovers,
through shared, unrequited crushes,
and the occasional mutual friend
who was always the friend to one
more than the other;

but then college, marriage, and motherhood,
softened one,
divorce, remarriage, and the loss of a child,
coarsening the other,
so that when they met at the reunion,
they were simply strangers who shared the same memories.

They questioned themselves,
what good was any friendship,
if it didn’t last forever?

But so few good things do—
a Drumstick ice cream cone,
the daisy corsage from a school dance,
the friendship bracelets made in pairs,
the old house one grows up in,
sticks of Fruit Stripe gum…

And yet, the memory of those things live on,
for the memories are what is of value,
sustaining the one who makes them,
at the time they were made.
They are timeless, priceless things
that cannot be held in the hollows of one’s hand,
but rather the chambers of one’s heart.