Early this afternoon, I recieved a most peculiar text message coming from a friend's cellphone. Although it was unmistakably her number and it was unmistakably her name - I find it rather curious as to why she would congratulate me as if she had not done it in a number of times already, and to refer to me, quite peculiarly, as 'kid'. I have only one name yet my friends call me by one of many sorts, and 'kid', I'm certain, is not one of them. I know only one person who calls me, and one which I have not heard in a very long while, among other such nicknames she (for this person is a she) is fond of calling me, kid. And so realizing this, my heart gave one of its familiar leaps and I gave one of my familiar gasps, that I could not help but ask myself: could it be?

Could it be you, Stella?

I immediately began thumbing in a reply, despite the almost uncontrollable tremors of my hand, to inquire to my friend who it was that used her cellphont to congratulate me but was too timid to leave a name. After an hour of waiting, and with much suspense, replied a familiar pair of letters, initials apparently, I should guess, in her attempt to heighten the suspense. It was rather unnecessary on her part, for I know fully well to whom the initials belong to. I asked my friend to kindly extend my thanks to Stella for her somewhat unexpected message, but greatly appreciated all the same. It was a little short, and a little late, and I was a little disappointed at why she chose not to text me with her own cellphone, for I know she has one, but it was the thought indeed that truly counts.

I have not heard anything from her or seen her for almost a year. Yet, through all those times, she existed in my heart and in my thoughts and in my dreams, that to me she is never really gone - but has taken to me an almost mythical state, almost like a ghost, a goddess. But with my seeing her, upon my passing by the hospital where she volunteers a few days ago, standing outside the ER in her immaculate uniform, conversing into her cellphone (with a preoccupied countenance that she, though staring directly at me, did not see me), and now receiving a message from her - makes her much more... real. Tangible. Touchable. Not like a photograph to amuse me with a blank smile. Not like an angel-faced succubus to visit me in my dreams and depart when I wake. Not merely a memory to remind me of the moments blurred by time.

A part of me wants to believe that there is something in her short message, that behind every words there peers that spectre of an emotion she once felt for me, even in the slightest, but I know there are none. It has been too long a time and so much has transpired. I am the only one who is unwilling to let it go, my weakness; but not her, she is stronger than me. Perhaps the message, by its warm tone, is her hand extended towards me in offering of a friendship, of forgiveness (something that I have asked of her since but was unable, at the time, to bestow), far from the harsh, heated words with which we chose to say our farewells, and for that - I am glad. Yet, there is more to it than that... somehow. I cannot wholly explain it.

But for now, it is enough.