Within the past few weeks, I’ve heard very bad news about a couple of friends I know/knew. Both with cancer. One had passed on. The other is in the midst of yet another round of chemo but the cancer has upended their life to the point that it all just seems Sisyphean in the end. One step forward, two steps back.

I’ve read the remembrances of the first friend on the socials. I struggled with my own. I didn’t know this first person super, SUPER well. We just met up yearly at a con, that’s it. But they were clever and kind, and larger than life in more ways than one. A person I would’ve been proud to have called a friend, if that’s what they’d consider of me as well. I don’t know. I’ll never know. I just know that I didn’t realize this last con would be the last time I’d see them. And now they are gone, and all I feel is that void that people leave when they die. That there’s something in my personal world that’s missing, that’s lessened. And everyone else who knew this person, I can see the loss in the way they interact with me.

Anyway the latter is still around, but I honestly don’t know what to do or say to this person, or if they even remember who I was. We had run through the same online RPG circles back in the day, when HP was all the rage and JKR wasn’t outed as a huge transphobe. We had fun together and eventually real life meant I didn’t have time to RP much anymore, and my connection to this person weakened. I still follow their socials, which is how I know about the cancer and the struggling and I feel a little guilty about not knowing what to do. But then, what can be done? I don’t live close enough to help physically. I just remember how much fun we had for those few years we knew each other, and now that’s all in the past. And those interactions really affected and influenced me to being a better person overall. To work with others, to take a compliment, to leave them regularly, and it all gave me a sense of self and accomplishment that I hadn’t felt before.

But now that’s all the past, and well, 20 years later, what’s left? Except a few pithy words on a comments page? A like? A heart? A hug emoji? It all feels performative and not enough. But this person is still here. I just don’t know what to do about it. And I feel selfish and wrong and helpless.