A very good friend of mine has dropped off the internet. They have been sparse for about 18 months now.

I still send them memes, because they have typically checked in once a week or so and we would chat for a little bit. Staying connected. They are the person who named the Cards For Humanity project.

But then it was a few messages around when my brother died at the end of April, a few again right around the funeral in June, and then one two-sentence check in in July, and one two-sentence check in in August. I haven’t heard from them since.

I know that they are busy. I know that their life is heavy and hard, with family and kids and all kinds of everything else.

18 months ago they experienced a great tragedy, and I started sending them cards and letters regularly – once a week at first, and now tapering off to about one every 2-3 weeks. Reminders that someone cared enough about them to send a stupid card with a pun on it, or whatnot. I know they treasure these, as often their brief check-ins include comments about them.

But … I’m finding it hard right now to speak into the void.

They have probably half a shoebox worth of cards and notes and letters from me, as well as a number of care packages sent over the years. I have… some screenshots. And it has never bothered me that I write letters to people who respond in the ways that make the best sense to them – not everyone can manage the mental step of pen on paper, and it’s a skill that most people don’t choose to specialize in. My special interest does not need reciprocity to be my special interest.

In all my decades of writing letters, I have received very few in return, and I have kept all of them! But I haven’t ever felt like I needed that, and certainly do not feel that I am owed that in any way. The horror. No – my love is sent through the mail with no expectation even of knowing that it ever arrived.

But it’s still hard right now.

One of the things I asked them to promise me, when confronted some years ago about the fact that the internet is a fickle place and people disappear all the time, was that if I ever needed to find out what happened to them, I could send a letter – in hopes that even if they were no longer with the world, someone would be answering their mail and could tell me.

Is two months long enough of a silence to send that letter? I don’t know.

But I sure as hell know I don’t want to send it.