Faith. The name was very apt. She was my very best friend, at a very lonely time, and she gave me faith.

Though our friendship split apart, in part because of our differences, in part because of our similarities, she showed me what friendship could be. She showed me love of more than just family. She showed me that people make mistakes, and that we must forgive.
Faith showed me so much, and I would like to tell her how thankful I am for the life lessons I learned from her. To tell her how I've used them, how I will use them in the future. But I can't. I haven't talked to her in seven years. I have no phone number for her, no email address. She's not the kind to use Facebook or Myspace, though I've looked anyway. I've looked on people finder and found her grandmother, but there was no phone number, only an address, and I was too scared to go that route.

So, instead, I wrote a letter. A letter that will never be sent, but a letter I wrote anyway. In it, I told her how her friendship taught me to never give up, to chose my dreams, to never let go. The more I wrote, the more I remembered. And the more I remembered, the more I wrote.

The letter is still not finished. I don't know if it ever will be. It sits in the small oak box she gave me one Christmas, and every time I do something that reminds me of Faith, I take the letter out and write it down. Complete with full-detailed memories of certain occurrences.

Faith gave me the most basic of gifts: Love. And that, broken down into a million facets, has taught me everything.