My teenage best friend has died

[ImJustMadAboutSaffron]

I found out over the last day or two and I am taking it hard, even though we hadn't been in touch for many years. We drifted apart when she got married. We were very close from school up to the age of about 20, when I was a student and she was a student nurse, but she then married her childhood boyfriend who she had recently reconnected with and they started a family very shortly after.

Though we drifted apart, we were at primary and secondary school together and had a rather intense time from the ages of about 15 up to 19 when we went out all the time and did all the 'firsts' together - first boyfriends, girls' holidays, being dumped, all the usual. We fell out, too, and she could be difficult (I got blamed for a lot of her teenage catastrophes that were hers alone) but I know that without her in my life, I would never have had the experiences I did and met the people I did. I owe her a lot. Never a dull moment with her, some very mad times, but lots of fun and good memories, too.

I found out quite by chance as her birthday is 1 March, and whilst trying to find a way of getting in touch with her again (finally!) I saw the news on her brother's Facebook page.

Really hard for me to process. It's ironic that we had all those years of going out and we had so many different boyfriend dramas with her, only for her to marry the 14 year old boyfriend!

It's strange how keenly this has hurt me, after so long without contact.

I’m sorry to hear this.

I lost touch with my best friend from primary school after we left university, though I did hear about him from another friend.

He died several years ago now, aged 29.

I couldn’t get upset for ages, as I hadn’t seen him for years.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say really, but I hope you get on ok.

It's strange how keenly this has hurt me, after so long without contact.

I understand, OP. I had a good friend in primary school who died ten years ago - we had been out of touch for many years, but she was such a big part of my childhood that it was shocking she could be dead. With childhood friends we know their families too, and we can picture their grief all too clearly.

I have memories that only she and I would remember, and now I am the only one who remembers those things, which almost makes them less real to me. I can't think about school without remembering that she is dead. The fact that we had gone out separate ways doesn't change that.