The meaning of friendship in later life

When one of your closest friends dies, the grief is often expected. But what follows—what truly lingers—is quieter, slower, and harder to name. It’s the feeling that the circle has shrunk again. That someone who used to know you, really know you, is no longer around to verify your stories, laugh at your old jokes, or text you a photo too inappropriate to describe here.

You don’t just lose the person. You lose the mirror they held up to your life. And if you’re lucky—or unlucky, depending on the day—you’re left with all the echoes.

It began, as many things do in this phase of life, with silence. Days passed. Then a week. Then another. No jokes, no videos, no “can you believe this?” messages from the friend I’d exchanged words with almost daily.

He never told me about his surgeries. Never mentioned feeling unwell. And then, just like that, he was gone. Cardiac arrest. A mutual friend broke the news. The surprise was dull, not sharp. I was stunned—but not shocked. At this age, the inbox of life contains more goodbyes than invitations. And yet, the absence still caught me off guard.

We had met in 1982, fresh from our studies abroad. Two young men carrying stories, secrets, and swagger picked up from Western campuses and trying to reorient ourselves back in a Malaysia that wasn’t quite ready for all of it. Or maybe we weren’t quite ready to let go of what we had been abroad. We worked at the same company. We exchanged mixtapes. We traded half-truths about our wild nights. We kept the memories alive, decade after decade, text by text. Until one day, the messages stopped.

People love to say every generation is special. That “we had it harder,” or “we had it better,” or “we were freer.” I don’t know if we were special, but I do know that we were alive in a time that made everything feel urgent and uncertain.

The Vietnam War had just wound down. The hippie movement had rippled across the world. In Penang, where we found ourselves, it didn’t take much to feel like rebels. Long hair. Scruffy jeans. Obscure bootlegs of Zeppelin and The Who on cassette. Even listening to punk bands like The Clash felt like a revolutionary act—especially when the uncles next door preferred the Carpenters.

We weren’t out to change the world. But we did want to resist being swallowed whole by it. Our rebellions were small: a band shirt under a button-down, a secret magazine tucked behind an economics textbook. Some didn’t survive the era. Drugs, disillusionment, dislocation. But we did. And with survival came an invisible bond. A nod, a smirk, a shared code: we made it.

It’s easy to look at younger generations and say they have it easier. And maybe they do, in some ways. But I also see something else: a lack of fire. A mutedness. Not because they’re lazy or indifferent—but because they inherited a world that trained them to follow the steps. University? Just a rung on the ladder. Career? Optimized for LinkedIn. Love? Swipe right. Protest? Click “Share.”

My friend eventually migrated to the US, chasing a better life for his kids. He stayed Malaysian in spirit. Returned every few years to visit, to laugh, to repeat the same jokes over teh tarik. He and I both had the privilege of retirement and the means to travel. In our sixties, that alone felt like a minor miracle. We had settled into an older version of ourselves. Softer in some ways, sharper in others. The kind of friends who didn’t need to talk every day to stay close—but still did, just because we could.

Across four decades and eight jobs, I’ve collected a decent number of people I still call friends. Not all close, not all constant. But enough to fill out a group chat or two.

Interestingly, the older I got, the less I clung to friendships that no longer worked. Not out of spite. Just clarity. Some friendships frayed because our lives diverged. Others faded after a misunderstanding neither of us had the appetite to fix. A few friends were quietly removed. Not blocked. Not ghosted. Just… let go. The door stayed unlocked, but I didn’t go knocking anymore. And surprisingly, a few returned—years later, older and wiser, ready to pick up the thread. Those re-friendships feel earned, like second drafts we got to write better.

But here’s the best part: I didn’t stop making new friends.

Nobody tells you this, but making friends later in life can feel even more natural than it did in your twenties. You’re less insecure. Less eager to impress. You know what you like, and more importantly, what you don’t. You spot a kindred spirit not by their music taste or clothes, but by how they speak to a waiter. How they talk about their family. How they laugh—not too loud, not too performatively, but from the belly, like it matters.

Some of my newer friends have surprised me. We met at tai chi, at travel lounges, on WhatsApp forums, through our children. And they’ve offered a depth I didn’t expect, a generosity I didn’t ask for. They share articles, memories, and sometimes even fears. It’s not small talk. It’s scaled talk. Life-sized. Maybe we get better at choosing friends as we get older. Or maybe we simply stop auditioning and start receiving.

You don’t need friends who agree with you all the time. You need ones who get you. Who understand your quirks, your old wounds, your thresholds for drama. Who know when silence is an act of respect, not distance.

You also don’t need many. Just enough. Enough to cover the days when the world feels too quiet, or too noisy. Enough to remind you who you were, and who you’re still becoming. And yes, you’ll lose some. That’s the price of age. But it’s also the reason to keep making more. Friendship in later life is not about quantity. It’s about resonance.

One thing that surprises me is how much younger people value their friendships too. There’s a tenderness in the way they speak about their circles. An earnestness. Maybe it’s a reaction to the chaos of the modern world—climate anxiety, political messes, information overload. They, too, are looking for anchors. It reminds me that the human need for connection hasn’t dulled. It’s just been digitized, re-routed, meme-ified. But under the screens and scheduling apps, the desire is the same: to be seen, remembered, needed.

And sometimes, I wonder if I could be that friend for them. Not the “wise old uncle” type. Just someone who listens. Who texts back. Who asks how they really are.

When you lose a friend, you start thinking about the kind of friend you still want to be.

Do you call first? Apologize first? Make time first?

Do you open the circle—especially when it’s easier to close it?

Do you become the kind of friend who helps someone step back from the edge—not by dramatic intervention, but by consistent presence?

The older I get, the more I believe this: being a good friend is less about grand gestures and more about small, repeated acts of attention. You reply. You show up. You remember their birthday. You laugh at their recycled jokes like it’s the first time. You forgive. You stay.

I miss my friend. Not just because he’s gone, but because he represented a version of me that only he remembered. We knew each other not just in facts, but in phases. We were soundtrack-sharing, secret-swapping, scene-surviving friends. That kind of bond isn’t replaced. It’s honored. I like to imagine him now, somewhere good. Somewhere with better sound systems. Still head-banging to Stairway to Heaven, probably demanding a solo from Hendrix and a rewrite from Lennon.

As for me—I’ll keep texting the others. I’ll keep meeting new people. I’ll keep laughing at my own jokes, just in case someone else finds them funny too. Because friendship doesn’t end. It evolves. It adapts. It shows up in different forms, through different decades, with different faces. But the core remains: connection, understanding, memory, meaning. And if you’re lucky, a few wild stories that still make you blush.