Friendship?

Why is it that genuine friends are so hard to find?I once had a best friend, we were friends since the second grade. We did everything together, shared classes, shared lunches, spent weekends together, shared secrets, clothes, stories, everything we did, everything we had; we shared.We made each other gifts, pictures, craft items, precious pieces of nature found. We made certificates which pronounced that we would be best friends forever more. We pledged to be each others maid of honour, guardian to each others children... Everything to each other, whatever the other needed, we would always be there.After seventh grade my family had to move, Dad had a transfer with work.We plotted, a 12 year old and an eleven year old, how we could ask her parents to let me live with them, how we could run away together if they wouldn't, how we could ask our parents to let her come too.All in vain.We moved, thousands of kilometres away, from Townsville (North Queensland) to Western Sydney (every one knows where Sydney is right?!Until then, I had never imagined my life without Len by my side; I cried... all the way to Sydney...We wrote letters to each other, often and regularly, it started of every week, then every two weeks, once a month, whenever we got the chance...Many things happened that we never had the chance to share; many kisses, many friends, many boyfriends, many changes, many secrets left untold.Too much distance for a couple of kids, however we still believed that we would be friends forever, no matter what.As we grew up and moved out of home we started to call each other monthly as well as write, she moved again, passing by Sydney to Melbourne. She stopped over in Sydney with her family, but I couldn't visit, my family were away on holidays and I wasn't allowed in the house whilst mother was away (don't ask!)Years passed, phone calls and letters continued as we could fit them in to our busy schedules. We had a connection it seemed, I could tell if her letters were happy or sad at a touch. I would call her at an unusual time to find that was the time she needed me most, like when her boyfriend raped her. Like the time she was in hospital near death from a rare virus that took time to identify.More time passed, more memories were left unshared, more emotional distance growing between us.Until her boyfriend moved to Sydney for work, and she came to visit him.And I visited her with my son (who was 18 months old at the time) and asked her to be his guardian and I would arrange his naming for the end of her stay so she wouldn't have to make an extra trip.She agreed to be Liam's guardian. Just as we had always planned.She had to go to Papua New Guinea to visit her family (her Dad got a transfer for work too).She never came to Liam's naming. I never saw her again.I rang her - she came back from PNG with the flu.She didn't ring to say sorry I can't come.I wrote her one last letter, told her how hurt I was that all we'd shared as children and as we were growing up now appeared to be irrelevant.I asked her that if our friendship ever meant as much to her as it still did to me that she write me back and if not then she shouldn't bother.Any relationship takes two.I guess it wasn't meant to be after all...I still think of Lenice as the best friend I ever had.She will always be in my heart, I will love her forever.I will not put the stress on myself of trying to maintain a friendship that is not really there anymore.I miss her...