{"id":6,"date":"2009-06-10T11:42:02","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T18:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/?p=6"},"modified":"2010-02-09T15:47:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T22:47:07","slug":"a-visit-with-a-friend-long-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/?p=6","title":{"rendered":"A Visit With A Friend Long Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In preparing for an eventual move I\u2019ve been going through all  my  stuff to clear out as much as I can. Included in this \u2018stuff\u2019 are the  many letters I\u2019ve saved over the years from family members and friends.  I have culled my treasures many times so I only have some of the more  precious tomes left. I\u2019m not quite ready to read those from my mother  who we lost just about a year ago. I\u2019ll keep them for another time. I  did however read all those I saved from a very dear and departed friend  Diane.<\/p>\n<p>Diane and I met in our first year of college and  remained friends over the years until she decided to end her life. I  knew going into these letters would be tough and a bit tragic but I had  to see whether I should keep them or not.<\/p>\n<p>When I received  the sad news about my friend I was going through a life crisis of my  own. I had thought of calling her just a night or two before I heard  and always felt that if I had only made that phone call\u2026things might  have turned out differently. Well, no telling as far as that is  concerned but on reading her letters I am left to believe my call may  have cheered her for the moment but in the end would have made little  difference as to her final decision.<\/p>\n<p>Diane and I both had  our share of troubles in our early years of college; well hell who  doesn\u2019t? We were drawn to each other by our common pain and  sensitivities. We both felt understood by each other unlike by anyone  else in our lives. Unfortunately our lives took separate directions  early on and most of our contact from then on was through infrequent  letters and even less frequent phone calls. We did stay tied to each  other though and that was brought back to me through reading the  letters that I still have.<\/p>\n<p>In the end I thoroughly enjoyed  revisiting my friend through her letters; was reminded of the times we  did get to visit each other and of the many trials and tribulations she  went through over the years after school. The very last note I had from  her was of the announcement of her wedding to the fellow she had been  writing about and mentioned early on that she hoped she would marry. It  seemed to me she had found her other soul mate and had finally gotten  her life together.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll never know why she decided a few  years later that life wasn\u2019t worth living. She overdosed on pills and  perhaps was hoping someone would find her and understand how much pain  she was in. Alas she was found too late and all I have left of her now  is my fond memories and the passionate notes of a dear old friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In preparing for an eventual move I\u2019ve been going through all my stuff to clear out as much as I can. Included in this \u2018stuff\u2019 are the many letters I\u2019ve saved over the years from family members and friends. I have culled my treasures many times so I only have some of the more precious [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of","category-pegs-postings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/frees.com\/peg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}