And if you close your eyes does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all?

Last week, someone I used to be good friends with died unexpectedly. It had been years since we were last really were close—nearly a decade, which feels like a lifetime considering all the twists and turns these past 10 years have held.

But there was a time when Chris was one of my closest friends. We met playing roller derby (he was a ref and I was a skater). We were already spending a lot of time together, between a multi-day practice schedule, fundraisers for the league, and weekend bouts, but further bonded over our failed marriages: Chris was already a year or two into his divorce and I was recently separated.

He and I and a few others (many of whom were also newly single) formed a little crew: we went to happy hours, signed up for color runs, spent time building new lives on top of the ashes of our old ones. I remember he really loved the band Bastille, and their radio hit “Pompeii” became an anthem in those early days after my first marriage ended.

I’m not exactly sure when we stopped talking; it was a slow drift after I moved on from derby and started to build the foundations for our new lives. I moved away, then moved again. Chris switched jobs, got into a serious relationship, and had a kid. I wished him well from afar, but recognized that our friendship was for a certain time and place and that time had come to an end.

Still, I can’t stop thinking about the fact that he’s dead. That the life he was living that I no longer knew anything about ended suddenly, seemingly without much warning. While I’m certainly not as young as I once was, I’m still at a point in my life where these losses feel unexpected, and frankly, unfair. Chris deserved to get old. He deserved to watch his daughter grow up. He deserved to experience the pleasures and delights of living longer than the 48 years he was given.

It’s a difficult reminder of how fragile life is, and how important the people we meet along the way are, even if they don’t stay in our lives forever.