by Jane Allyson

Created on: March 04, 2008

Our friends are very dear to us. They share our good times and help us get through the bad times. A friend is a person who you love and trust. They accept you for the person you are and you can feel completely at ease with them. To have a friend means that you never have to be alone.

How wonderful to have someone close to you who is "switched on" to what makes you unhappy and what brings you joy in life.

So what happens when something goes wrong?

With some close friendships, trials and tribulations wash over them like the surf on the tide. Every so often, things may get a bit murky and bad feelings can rise to the surface due to misunderstandings, but a good friendship with strong roots will survive such a storm and take the opportunity to develop and grow during calm waters.

For some of us, our relationships may not be so robust, and every so often you may have to go through the experience of a "lost" friendship. For whatever reason your friendship has come to an end, if it was special to you and you had grown particularly fond of , or close to your friend, it may take a little time to come to terms with what has happened.

It is inevitable in life that people develop and grow within their individual lives, and sometimes this might mean losing touch with someone special along the way. This can happen over a slow period of time and you may not even realize what has happened, before you are given the chance to lay down any new "roots". Often by the time you notice that there is a problem, you may have moved on yourself, and there is nothing left to feel except great sadness.

One way to deal with this situation is to contact your old friend and tell them how you feel. It may be that she has been thinking the same thing herself and will be willing to reconnect old ties. You may not get a positive response or you may have found it impossible to regain contact at all. At least you know that you made one last effort to get in touch, and this can be your solace as you begin the grieving process for your lost friend.

Everyone will grieve in light of a broken friendship and its intensity will depend on how close you both were in the past. Our friends are privy to our most innermost secrets and desires and often enough we have shared our deepest feelings with them. For this empathetic connection to be brutally ripped away, can mean great distress and the inability to cope properly with what has happened.

One way of dealing with the situation is to evaluate just how much that

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