When I was a young kid (elementary and middle school, about,) my best friend was a kid named Michael Rosner. I can't really remember how we met, but it probably had something to do with the fact that our parents were friends. As I got older, Mike and I grew apart; I went to a different school and made other friends there. We saw each other occasionally, but I heard more about him from my dad, who was good friends with Mike's dad. Jim and Katherine Rosner had gotten divorced when Mike was six, he was my first friend with divorced parents. Katherine remarried and moved to Eugene, Oregon; Jim began dealing with Multiple Sclerosis, trying everything he could come up with to combat the syndrome. I heard from my mother the other day that Katherine was in the hospital with terminal cancer, the doctors had removed a tumor from her stomach only to find a few weeks later that it had metastasized and spread to several other places in her body. Today, Mom told me that she was going up to visit Katherine in Oregon. While talking with her about the visit, Katherine told mom that Mike is in Iraq, a lieutenant with the National Guard.It's strange to think about friendships falling away like that. I don't know how my mom maintains her friendships with people she hasn't seen in years; I lose track of people in months. My best friends from childhood I rarely even think of, and would know nothing about except for my mom's contact with their families. I feel bad for Katherine, I feel worse for Mike being stuck on the other side of the world while his mother is dying. But I knew these people fifteen years ago. I have shared none of my adult life with them, feel no real connection. I can't feel guilty about this, but I do anyway.