How are you today?

[Jackalope]

So sorry to hear about your friend. It sounds like you were very close.

We were, some time ago. She was my best friend's (at the time) sister, and an occasional lover. I knew her since I was 13(?), she was a few years older. She was very troubled. She disappeared for the longest time. Or was it I that disappeared? Perspective is a strange thing. It was half a lifetime ago.

This is going to come across as extremely crass but trust me when I say I can feel your loss, probably more so now than I might have been able to back in the day or in that alternate universe where our life went the way it should have.

Not at all. Such a statement is only crass when it comes from someone who cannot possibly understand the loss.