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<\/a><\/p>\nI hate it when a cherished friend up and quits me.<\/p>\n
Thankfully it hasn\u2019t happened but a couple of times in my life, but boy, oh boy have those break-ups hurt.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not talking about romances. I\u2019m talking about the kind of friend I considered an intimate. Somebody I could talk to about any given subject matter. Somebody I did talk to about any given subject matter, a lot.\u00a0Only to arise one day and to discover, seemingly overnight, that the friend I cherished had become a stranger.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Or just plain strange.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never been through a divorce, so I really can\u2019t compare the two, but in my head I imagine that it must be something like that.<\/p>\n One minute you are raising children together.\u00a0The next minute you act like you hardly know each other.\u00a0<\/span>All that laughter, all that tenderness, all those \u201cI know exactly what you mean\u201d<\/em> gone, gone, gone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Like John Hiatt sings:<\/p>\n Gone like my last paycheck gone gone away Gone like a Nixon file gone gone away \u00a0<\/p>\n When a friend up and quits you there is just nothing, short of the love an Almighty God, that can repair that.<\/p>\n I was thinking about this while reading the recent Rolling Stone article<\/a> about the ongoing feud between Joy Williams and John Paul White, best known as the prophetically-named duo The Civil Wars<\/a>.<\/p>\n Never heard of The Civil Wars?<\/p>\n Listen to this selection,\u00a0From this Valley<\/em>, \u00a0one of my favorites from their new release:<\/p>\n
\nGone like the car I wrecked gone gone away
\nGone like a fifth of gin gone gone away
\nGone like the shape I\u2019m in gone gone away
\nMy baby\u2019s gone away<\/p>\n
\nGone like my Landlord\u2019s smile gone gone away
\nGone like the furniture gone gone away
\nGone like the rest of her gone gone away
\nMy baby\u2019s gone away<\/p>\n