I'm not a Mom on tv, but I play one in Real Life.

I found out this morning that a very close childhood friend died last night.

I lost touch with her years ago. I last saw her just after high school graduation. I’d been meaning to find her. It was something I was going to get around to. Her name would come to me when something would remind me of her. Oh, I’d think, I should really see if I can find an email address for her. I wonder what she’s up to, how she’s doing. And then I’d go back to my life and promptly forget. It was so easy to procrastinate, so easy to say I’d get to it later. I always thought there would be time.

There wasn’t. She passed away without a word from me in over 20 years. She never knew my kids. I don’t know if she ever had any. She knew my second husband, we all grew up together. But I don’t know if she was aware we finally married after all those years, or had two kids together, or divorce a few years later. I don’t know if she ever knew the blush of being a new bride, or the pain of being a new divorcee.

I can still find this out from her family, from her friends who stayed close. But I can’t sit down to lunch with her, debating whether we should be “good” and get salads or say What The Hell and split a decadent chocolate dessert. I can’t ask her how she feels about being the age our parents were when we last saw each other. Or if she thought turning 40 would feel like this. Because she’ll never turn 40.

There’s a quote, I know it attributed to Mark Twain, though that could be incorrect since I believe I got that info from Wikipedia. It goes something like, “Years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you did NOT do… than by the ones you DID do…”

I didn’t reach out to Natalie. And now it’s too late. I’m so sorry, Nat. I miss you deeply. I wish I could have told you that.