Lane von Herzen: The Best Friend I've Never Met

My Third Novel's Conclusion, My Heartbreak

My heart begins to break when I think about completing this particular book -- because this narrative has sustained me like no other story I've known. It's both more personal and more universal than my other works. But beyond memory and archetype, it's a cri-de-coeur about needing to become the person one is destined to be. And in the writing, I have met my own life's work, my own fated journey -- having the sense all the while that the pages are suffused with a resonance, an energy, an electrified field that defies explanation. Writers hope and pray to be overtaken by a work in this way -- to be conscripted into passionate service of a profound story. To experience it even once in a lifetime seems a great privilege. I still have several months before this novel is complete, and this constitutes my reprieve. Because I'm not ready for the beauty to end.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

The Best Friend I've Never Met

Some have wondered how my family and I have survived the ordeal of false reporting perpetrated by a powerful institution like the FBI.

My answer resides in what I know without traditional ways of knowing.

Within the Department of Justice, at the head of the OIG Hotline, I have pictured a woman -- a particular woman whose name I don't know, whose voice I have never heard, whose smile I have never seen. She happens to be an extraordinary person, when I picture her in my mind's eye -- courageous, fearless, determined, protective, ethical, dauntless, wise, perceptive, insightful and powerful. She happens to be a black American when I envision her -- beautiful, regal, unstoppable, faithful, overflowing with honesty.

And this woman doesn't know it, but she is my dear friend.

I, who have passed years in veritable isolation from the wider world, have depended with all my life on friends at a distance.

And I have never met anyone within the OIG Hotline.

But still.

I see an astonishing woman there with the far-reaching sight of my mind's eye, and daily I extend to her my praise, my thanks, my admiration, my friendship, and my good faith.

The woman I envision has been, at a distance and with no communication, a formidable guardian over my life and the lives of those I love.

I have never met her, but I sense her transformative presence, nonetheless.

No one has been as strong as she, as benevolent as she, as forceful as she, as willing to endure the same hardships I myself have endured.

She has held her position on this front line, and she has not fallen.

And three thousand miles away, I, too, still stand.

So, I just want to tell her that her soul is so luminous I see it from this distance, clear and bright and shining.

And I want to tell her that she is extraordinary and magnificent and great-hearted and Good.

And I want to tell her that she is my dear friend, upheld and defended and cherished in the way that I uphold and defend and cherish my family.

She is, in my mind's eye, the best friend I've never met.

And when I picture her, I hope that I one day have the privilege of telling her so in person.

If my sight is true, and it is, to meet her would be one of the great honors of my lifetime.

I hope it is mine to claim.