Ever since Thanksgiving, I’ve looked for a story that’s based on the end of a year. I couldn’t find one. There are stories about beginnings and seasons and other holidays but nothing for the end of a year. Instead of reading or writing about New Years, I believe we sing.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot-

And never brought to mind?”

Like the character in “When Harry Met Sally” I used to wonder, what does that lyric mean? Are we supposed to forget those we knew long ago? Are we benefited somehow by releasing what become just the memory of memories? And, if someone has slipped beyond recall, what use is it to try and remember them now? It was all very confusing.

But confusing or not, Auld Lang Syne is as much a part of New Year’s Eve as the line at the bottom of a math problem.  We sing it to say farewell to a year that is ending and the people we’ve left behind in our pasts. This year, that song’s personal to me.

Why It’s Personal

This year I lost one of the best friends I’ve ever made, someone who taught me how to be a friend. We met when we were two weirdos made of nothing but potential and hope. Luckily, we both liked the same “weirdo” things, like folk music, liberal politics, and theatre. (Three subjects guaranteed to get you killed in small-town high school) We laughed at the same silly jokes. I think we were both still a bit scared about boys; both of us had impossible crushes. She yearned for a fellow in the town she’d left while I crushed on a transient teacher. So, we kept each other talking and laughing and company through two trying years of adolescence. Then, at graduation, we let go of the friendship with a wave. But neither let go of the memories.

The internet reconnected us decades later but, from the way we behaved, you’d think no time had passed. We still talked for hours at a time and laughed at the same silly things. But, instead of adolescent crushes, we got each other through harder experiences: illness, death, and real heartbreak. We had each others’ backs, at least we did until January 8th of this year. Ever since that day I’ve been learning to live with just the memory of her in my head.

I’ve shed many a tear since the day Lisa died and I doubt if my weeping is done. Our friendship helped me build a life that I love and it feels like part of my foundation is gone. But at least this year since her death has resolved my confusion about That Song.

For Auld Lang Syne

Should Old acquaintances be forgot? Can we forget them, really?  We drink to their memories at New Years, not because we memorized every detail of their existence,  but because they helped make us the people we became. And, although facts or faces can get hazy with time, their influence remains. They are in the jokes we enjoy and the songs we sing. They visit, at times, in our dreams. In our deepest memory of memories, we carry our Auld Acquaintances with us, defining us now by their absence as they did when they stood beside us. We never really leave them behind.

So this is for you, Lisa, on this last day of the year. I wish you hadn’t left the party so quickly. If I catch up with you somewhere down the line, you can be sure I’ll fill you in on what you missed. Because I won’t forget you. I didn’t after high school and I won’t after death. I can’t. You are my Auld Lang Syne.