Beloved, you think of another long ago friend of yours from many long years ago. Your heart aches to talk to once more to this friend. You have no way of knowing if this long ago friend is still alive.
You were girlfriends, that's all. You don’t know how would you would reach this long-lost friend from long ago if she should happen to still be alive. Did she live in New York, New Jersey – where?
Her first name definitely was Helen. You can’t bring her last name back to life. She mattered to you. Her forlorn face digs into your heart.
Her eyes were brown-eyed doe eyes. Dreamy-eyed, moist, soft. Her eyes look up for answers. Her eyes pierce your heart.
You have abandoned far more than one friend over the years and miles.
If Helen could be alive today and you could locate her, would you? Would you pick up the phone? Would you start an email and leave it unfinished in the middle and never send it?
Regret seems to be so far as you can go. You have too much daily life to keep up with. You are pretty sure her name was Helen. Her last name, if only you could think of it, fit her perfectly. Did her last name begin with a B or D?
You don’t remember where you knew her from. She was a skinny friend, perhaps, bony with thin lavender-cast veins. What was her last name? Helen what? The thing is you would never have left her behind, yet you did. You know you did. And how many yet more dear others have you left by the wayside? She may not even have a thought of you.
And the people you did somehow keep up with? If you had checked, might you have noticed that you may not have felt so close to them? They were just there, or it was that they had made sure to keep up with you?
Here is Helen: She had once asked you why men did not seem to have had any interest in her. She had never had anyone ask her out.
Who knows what gibberish I had given her? Looking back then, I don’t think I had any idea of the bigger picture really. What I am sure of is that her heart wasn’t worth all the attention it took.
“Now I believe the answer is that Helen didn’t have much of a bosom, nor did she know how to use her beautiful brown eyes to flirt with.
“God, Helen was a spectacular thoughtful person fit for a King. Any man who would win her would have been crowned fortunate
“Now I would know better how to answer Helen.
“Helen, dear angel,” I might say now, “you just haven’t met the right person. There is someone very special out there for you.
“You just aren’t like everyone else. You are a jewel befit for a King and no less. He would be the happiest man in the world.
“Helen, may you have been swept up off your feet by now by a wonderful man who deserves you. May you have many rare children just like you who also are not like everyone else. The man who wins you – he cannot be a run-of-the-mill man in this world either.
“You are more subdued, Helen, than most of us. You are not giggly about life and men in general the way the world often seems.
“Many women may be just as sensible and serious as you if truth were known.
“Many women, to their sorrow, leave their true selves behind in the dust.”