Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.

Warmth and loss arrive together in this kind of remembering. Someone you love is well and far away, and thinking of them gives you the good of their company and the fact of their absence in the same moment. The sadness is not a flaw in the memory. It is the measure of what the friendship is worth to you.

Let yourself feel both parts rather than hurrying past the ache to get to the fondness. Then do the small thing the feeling is asking for and write to them this week, with no occasion and nothing to report.