Good friends are like stars, you don’t always see them but you know they are always there.

During the past two months I have been held together by a stream of beautiful people, some are old friends, some are new and some are my virtual friends who I’ve never met.

Within minutes of hearing the news my two oldest friends had booked plane tickets, in less than 24 hours they were by my side and were re-organising my house and completing a backyard blitz on the wilderness that is my non-existent garden. Even my linen cupboard is now orderly!!

For the next week they divvied up the tasks and project managed me and my life. Beside me at the funeral home when I fell apart, next to me at the funeral, they were able to say and do things that only your oldest friends can. Thank you Tracey and Janice.

Messages began arriving in the mail, on the phone, and through Facebook from people we had known throughout our lives.

Girls I sat next to in kindergarten or played with in the primary school playground. High school mates who had shared that whole frightful adolescence experience.

Colleagues I had worked with in the trenches of stressful jobs or laughed with over the morning coffee in the less manic roles.

My friends from Brisbane, neighbours, P&C buddies and the Creative Memories crew.

The navy boys who had served with Simon and the navy wives who had been my support network in those long, long months when the ships were at sea.

It didn’t matter if it had been years since we spoke and longer since we had seen each other, those long-ago shared experiences still united us. I could feel the care and concern in every message, “like” or “xxxxooo” and it helped, it really did.

Sorting through the old photos for the funeral montage was a surreal experience, we were so young. Playing at making house and grown-up dinner parties, glammed up for the Navy Balls, we were so innocent and so unaware the clock was already ticking.

Ages ago I wrote about a former palliative care worker, Bronnie Ware, who, in her work  with the dying, found there were five themes running through their list of regrets as life drew to a close. Coming in at number four was “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends”.

So today readers I want you to take a step towards ensuring that isn’t one of your regrets and give an old friend a call.