"and the goodbye makes the journey harder still"

If today was an ordinary Wednesday I would be making some yummy breakfast treats and a few extra cups of coffee would be brewing in the coffeemaker. I would be glancing outside every once in a while waiting for my friend's car to turn down the street and pull into the driveway. But today is no ordinary day because on Monday my dear doing-life-together friend, Mary, moved with her family to Montana. And although I haven’t quite yet come to grips with this reality, I feel it deep in my heart: lonely. And I guess that it is okay, because evidently things like this happen a lot in life and it reminds me how much I love my friends and how much I need something or Someone other than my friends (or my husband) to fill that lonely space. But, boy, do I still feel it and I still miss her terribly and I still wish she had not gone.

I already miss Mary's listening heart and the way she always asks wonderful thought-provoking questions, remembering even the smallest details of stories. I miss how we laugh one second and tear up the next over big and not-so-big things. I miss how she gets me, how she accepts the over dramatic, crazy things I do and say and even loves me for it. I miss how much she loves and likes my daughters and says life-giving, loving words to them. I miss how she makes herself at home here and how she knows where the glasses and silverware are. I miss doing this hard, crazy, beautiful life with her. The list goes on and on...and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the big, wide gap she has left. And I know she feels it too, perhaps even more so, and that breaks my heart as I have experienced some of what she is now going through: going "home" knowing that home is now hundreds of miles away. As we were praying for Mary and her family, Amelia prayed for God to "please put Mary's heart back together." So that is my constant prayer for my friend.

Now I'm left with the question of opening my heart again, do I risk letting someone in? Do I dare hope there is another doing-life-together friend out there with whom I can connect deeply? I do know the answer, I do, but for now, I’m just going to sit and imagine that Mary is going to walk through my door.