My oldest friend died of pancreatic cancer. I hadn’t seen him for almost 40 years, but it still hurts.

Chris and I were inseparable. We were best BEST friends. We played D&D together in the early 80s. We roamed the woods together for hours at a time. We explored music together. We were just the closest friends, and it broke my 11 year old heart when I found out that his dad had gotten a job out of town, and they’d be moving. I remember sitting in my home room class and just crying inconsolably.

BUT it was only an hour away, we told ourselves, and we’d get together as often as we could. And we did. Our parents knew we loved each other, and made really frequent play dates and spend-the-nights for us. And it did not suck…until two years later, when his dad got yet another job, and they moved to Texas, virtually halfway across the country.

We were in our very early teens by then, and we were both super into punk rock and metal, and for a while, we sent each other cassette mix tapes. And we wrote letters, and called each other on the phone. But of course all that slowed down and stopped eventually. We made plans to get together, but somehow never did. We wrote each other emails when that became a thing. And then those became less frequent.

And then his mom contacted me to say that Chris had been very sick, and that he had died of pancreatic cancer. And suddenly I was that 11 year old kid again, heartbroken and lost. I always just KNEW we’d see each other again. I always thought we’d be a part of each other’s lives again, somehow, some day.

I’m so sorry, Chris. Buddy, I should have tried harder.