When We Were 19, My Best Friend and I Promised That If We Were Both Single at 60, We’d Find Each Other – I Turned 60 Last Tuesday, and My Old Landline Rang

I wrote several pages.

I told him I loved him.

I told him I suspected I always had.

Then I tore the entire thing apart.

If Jeffrey was happy, I couldn’t bring myself to interfere.

So I continued being his friend.

Until the summer of 1986.

That was when his final letter arrived.

I knew something was wrong the moment I opened it.

Jeffrey usually began every letter with a joke.

This one began simply:

“Ruth,

Margaret and I are getting married. The wedding is in August.”

I sat at the kitchen table staring at those words.

I kept reading.

He explained that the ceremony would be small and that Margaret’s family was helping them begin their life together.

I told myself I could accept that.

Then I reached the last paragraph.

Jeffrey asked me not to contact him anymore.

He wrote that Margaret understood how close we had been and that he wanted to give his marriage the best possible beginning.