To My Best Friend, On Her Engagement

A letter on 17 years of friendship

To my Ruth,  

I’ll begin here, with a quote from a toast I made on your 21st birthday, “I’d like to thank the fall of the Soviet Union for allowing us to be here.” 

It will forever remain a symbol of fate that we grew up living five minutes from one another—two Russian Jews who saw their suburban neighbourhood as a version of a shtetl. You appeared in my life in the fifth grade and immediately impressed me because you found humour in everything. In the book we were reading in class, in the way someone wore their scarf, in the spelling of our teacher’s last name. 

I played hard to get at first, taking a moment to understand you but quickly recognizing that we were both realists who refused to read Harry Potter yet whimsical enough to invent our own characters and pretend to play them at recess. We were innocent then, trusting the old wives’ tales we were told—that if we sat on the pavement for too long our ovaries would freeze.

In the cold, outside on the playground, we planned our lives. The age we’d like to get married. The number of kids we’d like to have. Where we’d go to university. What countries we should live in. 

Me, the logistian. You, the dreamer. Then, you, sensible and me, idealistic. We changed roles frequently to be complementary, never competitive. It was a true form of love. 

I’ve always believed that our conversations were deeper. Our ideas more philosophical. Our jokes funnier. Our performances grander—I did, after all, tape a pillow to your ass for a Shakespearean play. 

At that age, I was quiet and shy, but I was always talking to you—waiting for your mom to be done with the phone so I could call your house. Later, I texted you my every move to include you in the moments of my life that you weren’t there for. And you did the same. 

A girl in the eighth grade once told me she felt sorry for us because we were each other’s only friends. It didn’t phase me. She was too young to appreciate that I had one friend but one good one. 

When we found ourselves going to different high schools, I looked for you in other people foolishly thinking I could find another version of our friendship. It was a dead-ended mission but a time that offered us the joy of being exposed to new viewpoints and personalities—stories we’d share when we made it our goal to see each other weekly. 

There are far too many memories to look back on, so many that they overwhelm me and I almost forget them all. What I know for sure, is that we were always talking. On the train ride to Montreal, on pointless car rides, on walks, in tents—usually, we were simple in our adventures but always talking or the equally enjoyable, sitting in silence and eavesdropping on the people next to us. 

I experienced separation anxiety when we’d spend long summer days together and then return to school. It’s funny how emotional we were then. We were nostalgists, artists who’d answer the phone and pretend to be someone new. “Who is this?” I’d ask.

“Depends who’s asking,” you’d reply.

Laughter acted as the foundation of our camaraderie. We laughed as you helped me with my first-year Russian homework in university, at the idiosyncracies of our families, at everything that we could and couldn’t control.

There was safety, consistency and the occasional argument but one of my most dedicated and fruitful relationships has been with you. A love that taught me how to consider and be considered. To know and to be known. To annoy and be annoyed by but to be there no matter what. 

You wrote to me when I just got my car and ran late to pick you up from your house, “I’m panicking. I heard a siren. Are you okay??” 

I simply had taken my time, too much time, to get ready.

I remember driving you to your first date with the man who became your first boyfriend. We were 18 and sitting in my car in the coffee shop parking lot waiting for this boy to arrive before you exited. “Is that him? Maybe it’s him?” we asked one another. 

On my 24th birthday, following brunch with friends, you left to meet someone. I learned, with time, that this person was not just another boyfriend but a kind and generous Frenchman—a Parisian who had stolen your heart. 

Of course, I know why he fell in love with you but when I see him with you, I know why it was easy for you to love him. A few weeks ago this Frenchman sat at my kitchen table for my brother’s birthday, my dad showed him a picture of meat that his friend grilled earlier that day and his eyes lit up with curiosity—I realized at that moment that my best friend had found the best life friend. 

Naturally, the future holds a lot of unpredictability; your move to Paris is the start of a new chapter—but may these pages bring laughter with baguettes by the Seine. As long as I can visit and we can talk. 

Love, 

Miriam

“La vie n’est pas une fête perpétuelle, c’est une vallée de larmes, mais c’est aussi une vallée de roses. Et si vous parlez des larmes, il ne faut pas oublier les roses. Et si vous parlez des roses, il ne faut pas oublier les larmes.”

―Jean d'Ormesson

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