If Heaven had a Hotline

Good morning… today’s prompt question is: “Who would you like to talk to soon?”

If heaven had a hotline and I could call anyone, it would be my best friend.

People often say when someone passes, “We never got to say goodbye.” But my grandmother used to tell me something different. She would say, “No one ever truly leaves without saying goodbye.” And the older I get, the more I understand what she meant.

Sometimes goodbye is hidden in the last conversation.
The last laugh.
The last piece of advice.
The last “I love you.”
The last ordinary moment you didn’t realize would become sacred later.

My best friend and I had the kind of friendship where time didn’t matter. She would call me at 3 a.m., and somehow we would still be talking at 5 in the morning. We talked about everything — life, love, faith, heartbreak, family, fears, dreams, and all the small things in between. Some people only get surface-level friendships in life, but ours carried depth. She knew the parts of me most people never saw.

If I could talk to her one more time, I think I would simply want to catch up.

I’d want to tell her how much I miss her.
I’d want to hear her voice again and listen to the wisdom she always seemed to carry so naturally.
I’d want to ask her how things are where she is, even though I know heaven probably has no need for clocks, pain, or explanations.

Mostly, I would want one more conversation that felt like home.

But if I’m honest, I think she already knows how much she’s missed.

Because love like that doesn’t completely disappear. It changes form, but it remains. Sometimes in memories. Sometimes in certain songs. Sometimes in the quiet moments when you hear their advice in your mind before making a decision.

Grief has a way of teaching us that people may leave physically, but the imprint they make on our lives stays behind.

And maybe that’s the real gift of friendship:
To be loved so deeply that even absence still feels full of presence.