I recently discovered a band, an album, a song that has been around a few years but is not “out there” for mainstream ears to hear.

It’s so profoundly amazing, ONE sentence, one meaning, one message, one experience, 9 words.

When my brother died and we learnt of it 5 weeks after the fucking fact that he was dead AND cremated, I slammed into hell and had to dive deep into it to learn what friendship means.

I lost friends early on, most were at a loss themselves, but that’s not my problem. Some gave me a hard time like they did Job in the Bible I don’t believe in anymore. Others wanted to cross oceans to pick me out of hell.

One of my former friends lives only 5 minutes by car or 20-30 minutes by foot from me. They distanced themselves early on, or at best behaved like soldiers doing duty service. If you should read this, I forgive you and I don’t blame you anymore. But I am glad that you are not in my life anymore.

I lived in Florida for a few years and travelled the States many times. In the first year of my bereavement and what Pret put me through, there was a friend in Virginia with his family. He wanted to book a flight to London to pick me up to stay with them. I declined, because how the fuck can my friend of 20+ years living 20 minutes from me not BE with me, while a friend thousands of miles away was about to pick me up to find some rest?

When I heard this song recently for the first time, all of this came up and I want to put this here and say to you Wa. C. and your family in Virginia, thank you again for having been there, but I couldn’t take it because I could have never repaid this friendship. I still can’t.

But you have shown me that to a friend’s house the way is never long. P.