I seem to love endings, and due to some flaw in my nature, the messier and more unsettling the better. When I was a teacher, it was like I had a subscription. Every year, more goodbyes. And in most cases, for forever.

Maybe not forever forever, though. Maybe.

There are no maybes today. Erin is gone. She was my best friend, my pseudo-sister, my platonic soulmate.

She left Japan and moved home a few years ago. We had our goodbyes, both quite certain we’d see each other again before five years had passed – unequivocally certain before ten had done. But that was before the illness, the malevolence that broke all certainties, except for one: it would kill her in three.

At our parting, we decided no tears were to be shed – it wasn’t forever, after all. I wish I could have kept that pledge, but this time it was forever and such things cannot be helped.

Goodbye, my love.