The distance eats away at me. I feel unmoored, floating. My best friend is in pain, and I’m hiding

Nachamu, Nachamu Ami.

Comfort yourselves, My Nation. Dry your tears. Get up off the ground. I am the One Who turned away from you, and I am the One now telling you to move on.

“I’m frozen,” I confide to a coworker in a late-night email.

She writes back, short, to the point. “Maybe unfreeze?”

I would love to. I would love to unfreeze and pick up where I left off with my best friend of 25 years. But ever since she lost her baby two months ago, I haven’t been able to speak to her normally.

Shivah was the relatively easy part. Sit at her side, offer her drinks, listen when she speaks, be silent when she doesn’t. Be inwardly appalled at the inane comments people make. And cry. Cry together. Let the pain out in a relieved release.

But ever since she took that walk around the block, I haven’t been able to hold a normal conversation with the person I know better than myself.