Dear Wafa,

I was 13 when I lost you, and now I'm 31. We have been friends for nine years, and I've been mourning you for twice as many years.

Over the years, I have written to you about a lot of things, things that I want to remember, so that I can come back here and read if my memory fails me. Today, I will add to it a few things I have never written about before.

One: I don't remember our first day at school. Which isn't surprising because we were just four years old. I didn't cry for sure— I was the kind of child who cries to go to school. Or maybe it was the instant friendship that gave us both the strength not to cry. But it wasn't just the two of us. There was also Fadiya, and we were great friends, whatever we thought friendship was at that age. I don't remember anything else of kindergarten, except that you and I used to have the exact same napkin for lunch. Just a coincidence, but it must have meant a lot to me back then for me to still remember it. I still remember that napkin. Then Fadiya went away and from class 1 onwards, it was just the two of us. But we were always in different divisions, you were in class A and I was in class B. For the rest of school. Except for class four when we had that big fight.

Two: When we were in Class Two, you had given me two beautiful handmade cards. We used to exchange notes and paper cards regularly I believe, but these two were really beautiful. It was made out of plain white paper, you had drawn beautiful red roses and hearts, and written words that some adult had helped you come up with. They were pop up cards, both of them, and were my most prized possessions for a long, long time. I lost them some time ago, in the process of shifting homes. I still hope that I would find them one day tucked away in some old book.

Three: That 'Lets break our friendship' letter you gave me in Class Four. Looking back, it all appears very silly but back then it wasn't. It all happened out of the blue. We were excited to be finally united in the same class after three years but we found that things had changed. Somehow, it wasn't the same. I didn't like it when you started becoming close to Rameeza, and you didn't like it when I started going to the washroom with Nasmeena. And one day, you gave me a letter, telling me not to read it before I reached home. It was written in a yellow ruled paper and on the back side were the words: 'Let's break our friendship'. I was devastated. Though you had mentioned not to tell anyone or call you after reading it, I did exactly that. I rang you up and cried and made a fuss and got our mothers involved. And we were made to patch up. Or did we do it on our own? That was my first lesson on the fragility of relationships, making me realise that we have to make efforts for it to work rather than take it for granted. (Yesterday, I went through the things you have given me and found a card saying 'I'm sorry, can we be friends again?')

Four: N+W=LLF. I don't remember it at all or who came up with it, but everything I had written in 2005 had this. It's a heart with N+W in the centre, overwritten, and then vertical and horizontal lines to fill the heart, and LLF on top of the heart: Long Lasting Friendship. Quite symbolic, if you ask me. Imprisoning ourselves in a heart of friendship. This too was brought back to me when I was going through our old relics yesterday.

Wafu, people ask me how it feels after so many years, whether it's still the same. No, it isn't. Of course, it isn't. In the first year of losing you, I have written to you every day. Then it slowly reduced to some times a year to just once a year, mostly in July, and this note comes after three years. But just last week, a friend sent me a newspaper clipping of your obituary, and my eyes swam with tears. It didn't matter then that it has been eighteen years ago. It felt as if I have lost you, all over again. And I think, and hope, that no matter how many years pass, I will always remember you. A piece of my heart will always be thirteen years old, frozen in the grief of losing someone dear for the first time.

Love,
Your loving friend Nasoo.