Some People Leave Footprints Without Even Saying…
And then, somehow, they become a part of your life that you cannot quite explain. He was one of those people.
I do not remember the exact day we became friends on Facebook. I wish I did. Perhaps I would like to know the precise moment when a stranger slowly became someone familiar. What I do remember is Game of Thrones. We were both fans. Maybe that was where our story quietly began, somewhere between Westeros, dragons, Jon Snow and all the conversations that made that series impossible to forget. At the time, it was simply a shared interest. I had no idea that the person behind that Facebook profile would eventually become someone I would remember in such detail.
Before we ever met
I believe he was already in my profile around in 2017, when Kit Harrington visited Sri Lanka. I remember seeing a photograph of him with Kit Harrington at the Southern Highway interchange. I must have liked it or commented on it because I remember thinking how incredibly lucky he was. He had met Jon Snow.
Years later, I would laugh at how little I knew about the person behind that photograph.
Apparently, Kit Harrington was not the only famous face he managed to encounter. While in Canada, he also took a photograph with Jason Momoa. Jason happens to be one of my celebrity crushes. Perhaps it is that smile. And my friend has a lovely smile too. It is funny how certain little details seem insignificant when they happen, only to become strangely memorable later.
A message in 2020
I cannot remember when our occasional Facebook interactions became actual conversations. But I remember one from 2020. A friend of mine in Canada had a birthday, and I was trying to find somewhere online from which I could send a gift.
I asked him for help because he was already living there. He suggested Baskit.com. He was helpful, patient and generous with his time. It was nothing extraordinary. Just a few messages between two people who knew each other online. But I remember it. Perhaps because life is often built from moments that seem insignificant when they happen.
2023…
For years, I knew him without ever having truly met him. I had seen his photographs. I knew his interests, his little habits, the friends and things he cared about, and fragments of the life he shared with the world. I knew a version of him that existed through screens and conversations, yet there was still so much I didn’t know. I had never heard his voice across a table. Never watched his eyes light up when he spoke about something he loved. Never seen the expressions that appeared on his face without him even realizing it. I knew him, but only from a distance.
Then came 31st May 2023. He was visiting Sri Lanka, and somehow, after all those years, we finally decided to meet. Just to say hi. Nothing complicated. Nothing that either of us could have imagined would become a memory I would carry for so long. At the time, I was working at Sheraton Colombo. We met one fine afternoon at Carnival Ice Cream. And I still remember the moment I saw him for the first time.
He was wearing a blue Nike T-shirt, my favorite colour. He was tall, exactly as I had imagined, but somehow different when he was standing right in front of me. And then there was his smile. That smile, It was genuine, warm and completely unforced. The kind of smile that makes a person feel comfortable without them even trying.
For a moment, there was something strangely familiar about seeing him there. Someone I had known for years suddenly had a voice, a presence, expressions, gestures. He was no longer a photograph on a screen or a name attached to conversations. He was right there in front of me. We started talking. And somehow, the years of knowing each other online seemed to disappear. There was no awkward beginning. No desperate search for something to say. No uncomfortable silence that needed to be filled. We simply talked about ordinary things, familiar things, random things and somehow it all felt incredibly easy.
I remember thinking how strange it was. How can someone feel familiar before you have ever actually met them?
It was our first meeting, but it didn't feel like one. It felt as though we had simply picked up a conversation that had been waiting for us somewhere, and moved it from a screen to a table. There was laughter. There were little moments of silence that didn't feel uncomfortable. There were smiles that happened without either of us trying to create them. And perhaps that is what stayed with me most. How natural it felt.
We took a photograph together that afternoon and posted it on Instagram and Facebook. Almost everyone assumed we were a couple. We weren't, because he was in love with someone else.
But, honestly, I understood why they thought so. There was something about that photograph. Something warm. Something effortless. Something that looked less like two people meeting for the first time and more like two people who had simply found their way into the same frame after knowing each other for a very long time. Maybe some connections don't need years of physical presence to feel real. Maybe sometimes, a person can be familiar before they are ever close.
And sometimes, without either person realizing it, an ordinary afternoon becomes one of those memories you return to years later not because something extraordinary happened, but because something felt quietly special.
A few days later, I invited him to join me and some friends for drinks.
He loves live music, particularly music from the 90s, and The Notion band was performing that night. My ex boyfriend was his batch-mate, so he knew him too. My cousin and two other girls who were friends of my friend joined us. And then came 24th June 2023. I remember that night with an almost unreasonable fondness.
There was music everywhere. We drank. We danced. We laughed. We took photographs with the band leader. We ate street food. We sang and drove around late at night. For a few hours, there was nothing particularly complicated about life. There was only music, friendship, laughter and the feeling that the night should not end. There was some jealousy drama too.
Now, it is simply another memory that makes me smile. If I could borrow one night from the past, just for a few hours, I would probably choose that one night. Not because it was perfect. Because it was alive.
The rainy evening
After that unforgettable night, we met alone only once more in Sri Lanka.
It was at Boardwalk by Waters Edge, after I finished work. The evening was wrapped in a gentle drizzle, and somehow, the rain made everything feel quieter, softer, almost dreamlike. We sat together and talked. There was no particular plan for the evening. No special occasion. Just two people sharing a little time together, knowing somewhere in the back of our minds that the hours were limited. The conversation flowed as naturally as it always did. We spoke, we smiled, we laughed, and for a while, the rest of the world seemed to disappear behind the rain.
I remember looking at the evening and wishing it would move a little more slowly because it was our farewell. I remember the sound of the drizzle.I remember the warmth of the conversation.
And, perhaps most of all, I remember knowing that he would soon leave.
There is something quietly painful about enjoying a beautiful moment while already knowing it is coming to an end. You try not to think about the goodbye. You stay a little longer. You listen a little more carefully.You notice the smallest things because, somehow, you already know you will miss him.
Eventually, the evening had to end. He returned to Canada. And I returned to my life. Some goodbyes are not dramatic. Sometimes they are simply a quiet evening, a little rain, a long conversation, and the feeling that you wish you had just a little more time.
Three times
I have met him only three times.
That is the strange part. And perhaps the most beautiful part too. Yet somehow, those three meetings feel much larger in my memory than the number itself suggests.
I remember the colour of his shirt, the warmth of his smile, the ease of our conversations, the laughter that made one night feel far too short, and the rain falling around us on our last evening together. I remember how ordinary those moments seemed while I was living them, and how precious they became once they were over. It is strange how the heart measures time differently from a calendar.
Some people can be around you for years and leave very little behind. Others can enter your life only a handful of times and somehow remain in a quiet corner of your thoughts long after they have gone.
Maybe significance has never been about how often someone stands beside you. Maybe it is about what you feel when they do. The comfort. The laughter. The unspoken familiarity. The feeling that, for a little while, you are exactly where you are meant to be. And perhaps that is why three meetings were enough.
Three small pieces of time, separated by months and eventually by thousands of miles, somehow became memories I still hold close.
Some people need years to become important.
Somehow, he did not.
Then came the distance
I did not see him again after 2023.
He returned to Canada. And, as life tends to do, everything continued. Mine moved in one direction. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and eventually the months quietly turned into years.
At one point, he came back to Sri Lanka. While I was in Dubai. He had apparently kept the visit as a surprise for me. He had imagined seeing me without me knowing he was there. Life, with its strange sense of humor, turned the surprise around, and he ended up being the one who was surprised.
We did not have a proper phone conversation again until July 2026.
Three years….
Three years is a long time when someone is no longer part of your everyday life. A lot can happen in three years. People change. Circumstances change. Lives take completely different turns.
And yet, when we finally spoke again, something inside me felt strangely familiar. There was no awkward beginning. No careful attempt to find our way back to each other. No need to ask who we had become. We simply talked. And somehow, the years disappeared. The humor was still there. The warmth was still there. The effortless rhythm of our conversations was still there.
One moment, I was aware that three years had passed. The next, it felt as though we had simply paused a conversation and continued it. It was almost unfair how easily it came back. As if time had changed everything around us, but had forgotten to change this one little thing between us. And perhaps that is what touched me the most. Not that we had spoken again. But that after all that time, I still felt at home in a conversation with him.
He knows my silence. We do not speak every day but he was obersving what’s happening in my life. Sometimes we do not text for long periods. But he checks on me. He encourages me. He listens. And somehow, he knows when I have gone quiet. That is something I have always noticed about him. He pays attention to the things that are not said.
Recently, when I was going through something difficult, he was there.
Not dramatically. Not with grand declarations. Just present. And sometimes, presence is the kindest thing another person can offer. He is a very good listener.
There was also a recent occasion when he reached out to me because of something rather stupid he had done. He knew he could tell me. He knows I will not judge him. Perhaps that is one of the quiet privileges of something real..
You can show up without polishing your story first.
Another strange similarity
Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism.
Only later did I discover that he had been living with the same condition for years. Another unexpected thread between two people living thousands of kilometers apart. We already shared Game of Thrones. Television shows. Music. A sense of humor. A tendency to be slightly ridiculous. And apparently, this too.
He is patient.
He is intelligent.
He is a good communicator.
He listens.
He remembers.
And he makes conversation feel effortless. There are people with whom you carefully construct sentences. With him, I never really have.
What remains
We do not need constant communication to prove that the friendship exists. There are no daily check ins. No expectations. No questions about where we have been or why we disappeared for a while. Life simply happens.
Different responsibilities. Different seasons. Different versions of ourselves. Years pass. Lives change. We become strangers to some of the people we once knew so well. And yet, somehow, there are a few people who never quite become strangers. He is one of them.
Even when he is far away, there is a quiet comfort in knowing that he is somewhere in this world. I may not know what his ordinary days look like anymore. I may not hear his voice for months. I may not know when the next conversation will happen. But somehow, I know that when it does, something familiar will still be there. And perhaps that is what makes this friendship so precious to me. It has never needed to be loud. It has never asked for constant attention. It has never needed promises to keep it alive. It simply remains. Quietly. Patiently. Somewhere between the memories we made and the moments we have not yet had.
There is something deeply comforting about knowing that distance can take away the everyday presence of someone without taking away what they mean to you.
Some people become part of your routine. Others become part of something much harder to explain. A feeling. A memory. A place in your heart that time does not seem to know how to reach. And maybe that is what remains. Not the number of messages. Not the number of calls. Not the years we have spent apart.
Just the quiet certainty that, despite everything life has placed between us, there is still a little piece of this friendship that neither time nor distance has managed to erase.
Some people become part of your story
I sometimes wonder why certain people cross our paths.
Why some stay for years, become woven into the ordinary parts of our lives, and then somehow become strangers. And why others appear only a handful of times, yet leave something behind that refuses to disappear. Maybe there is no satisfying explanation. Maybe some people simply arrive at the right moment. Maybe they are not meant to stay beside us forever. Maybe they are simply meant to leave something behind before life carries them somewhere else.
A memory.
A little courage.
A laugh that still makes you smile years later.
A conversation you remember more clearly than you expected.
A smile that felt genuine. Those innocent eyes that somehow made him seem both familiar and impossible to forget.
A feeling of being understood without having to explain too much. He has left all of those things in my life. And perhaps that is why three meetings never really felt like only three meetings. There were moments in between them that stayed.
The conversations.
The laughter.
The photographs.
The little things I never thought I would remember, but somehow still do.
I do not know when we will meet again. Perhaps it will be soon. Perhaps life will make us wait a little longer. Maybe there will be another unexpected visit, another coincidence, another moment when two lives that have travelled in completely different directions somehow find themselves in the same place again. I hope there will be another meeting. Another long conversation that neither of us wants to end. Another photograph we will look back on years later. Perhaps another rainy evening.
And perhaps, when we finally sit across from each other again, I will look at those familiar eyes and wonder how something so familiar could have survived so much time and distance. Maybe we will not need to talk about the years in between. We will simply talk. Because that is what we have always done. As naturally as if no time had passed at all.
Three meetings.
Over nine years between conversations.
Thousands of kilometres between us.
And still, somehow, when the conversation returns, something in me recognizes it. That familiar ease. That familiar laughter. Those familiar eyes. That feeling that some connections do not disappear simply because life stops giving them everyday space. Maybe that is all I need to know.
Some people do not have to be constantly present to remain important. Some do not need daily conversations, promises, or explanations to leave a lasting place in your life. Sometimes, three meetings are enough. Enough to create memories that time cannot erase. Enough to make you wonder what it is about one particular person that stays with you when so many others have quietly faded.
And somewhere between those three meetings, all those years, the distance, the laughter, the rain, those innocent eyes, and everything we have never said, there is a friendship I will always be grateful for. Perhaps some people are not meant to be understood. Perhaps they are simply meant to be remembered.
And if life is kind enough to give us another evening, another conversation, another moment sitting across from each other, I think I will simply be grateful for the chance to look into those familiar eyes again and say, without saying much at all: We are here again!
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