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Countless enduring connections start with a time of mild intimidation, and that’s exactly how it happened with the bond I shared with Nichola. We were young adults, in our initial year at college, and sharing a few French classes. I didn’t know her name, had never listened to her speak in the local language but, with her luxuriant curls and friendly, curious stare, she stood out. I assumed she would be too cool to hang around with someone like me.

One weekend, at a university gathering in the dingy campus lounge, drinks acted as an social lubricant and the barriers dropped. Brief smiles in the passageway became upbeat hellos, then sandwiches in the eatery, followed by social excursions and recovering from hangovers in front of the TV in our run-down student houses.

She was from Derry, my roots were in Yorkshire, and we connected over being far from home, not quite joining the newly shaping circles, and, like the majority of learners in the nineties, never having spare cash. If one of us was able to get hold of some – from a part-time job, a special occasion or a lenient loan officer – then it meant we both had money. In advance of our autumn term grant cheques had even been processed, we would hurry away to buy something recent to wear to boost our mood, living off tea and toast and £1 pints until the next windfall.

After a couple of years, we welcomed a mutual acquaintance (not her real name), and the three of us endured life’s milestones together. Nichola had her initial child the same year I came out as gay, and we got through personal shifts, professional moves, relocations and domestic challenges. Achievements she made, of which there were numerous, were shared by all; we felt each other’s hardships as if they were our own.

Once we were “mature individuals”, my friend and I would spend weekend days at her home with her, her partner, and young sons, doing “Sunday club”: preparing a dinner together, catching up, cracking jokes and moving in the cooking area to songs from our past. There was a slice of paradise and didn’t grasp until it was lost.

The call came from my other friend, one warm summer afternoon. Glancing at my mobile, I assumed it was a last-minute chat about the Sunday club holiday to our destination we were booked to go on in two weeks’ time. My dear friend had died suddenly and shockingly; there was nothing anyone could have done.

Receiving the news was the weirdest, most frightening experience of my life. I felt something instinctive, almost, in the surprise and panic of my instant grief. I had felt devastated to lose my family matriarchs years earlier, but I understood that was the natural course of things; departing in later life. Losing her was unusual, alien. It didn’t make sense, it couldn’t be true – we had been communicating the day before, we had intentions that weekend, holiday shopping to do. It was a ordinary Wednesday; how could this insignificant of a day become so significant in a flash? The day of her death is a dark, irregular puzzle component that doesn’t fit the sunny, joyful and fun puzzle of a life we had shared. I remember it with detailed horror.

In the following days and weeks, my friend and I parked our grief, attending to those closest to her. They would be hit hardest by her death, after all – particularly her young sons. Along with other relatives, we kept things ticking over, and handled difficult admin duties. I composed and shared a speech at her ceremony on behalf of her friends, and assigned myself the task of cancelling the holiday. The tour operator were monsters and dealt with me as if I was attempting fraud. They demanded to speak to her heartbroken husband and requested details inaccessible in her work email. I remember taking scans of her ID and official record to secure a potential refund – nothing hits you with the reality harder than clear language, in print, on government forms. Her home felt so changed, the rooms larger and barer, hollow. It was like a bad dream, really, except I’ve never awoken from it.

Engaging yourself with practicalities is a survival technique but, if anything, it hindered coming to terms with her loss. Exiting the inner bubble of those affected was difficult. The world looked just as before, but my heart felt cratered, the power of my grief extremely difficult to express to others.

In reflecting on others’ grief, we revert to relationships’ social structures as a benchmark. As a culture, we acknowledge the extent of sorrow of losing a loved one; it needs hardly any context, even for those nurturing negative feelings. Her children would never have a different mother, her husband had lost the love of his life, and, as a daughter and family member, she was unique. Such losses are traumatic and transformative. A friendship is harder to quantify. What claim did I have to grieve for her so deeply when I had different people?

The depth of my grief seemed to puzzle people who didn’t know her. They would ask how close we were, how long I’d been acquainted with her, how often we saw each other. I felt I somehow had to defend it, and stress how much she represented to me. I began to feel ashamed, as if I didn’t have a right to be so completely lost when the lives of those nearer to her had been shattered.

Bonds are evolving conversations … they predate and endure beyond romances

After losing a close relative, nobody anticipates much from you for months, but we both had to get back to daily life. I was given seven days off from my freelance role; she spent days at her workstation, suppressing tears, barely concentrating. We weren’t prepared, but grief is troublesome for others and has a deadline; your sadness makes them awkward.

The voids in my life gradually affected me. One fewer birthday text comes through, a new interesting piece of gossip goes unsaid, your calendar has more empty slots, once-shared activities become diminished. A key things Nichola and I would do on meeting up was appraise each other’s style. All these years later, when I buy something, I try to picture her reaction. Emma does the same.

Perhaps we underestimate the grief of friends because “friend” is a broad label, applied to workmates and {acquaintances|contacts|associates