Aries
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.
Henry David Thoreau
The friendship that has gone quiet probably ended months before either of you stopped texting. What you are missing is not the person but the version of yourself that showed up when they were in the room, the way you could speak without translating first. You have been carrying both sides of a conversation that only one person was still having. The silence is not the problem. The silence is what happens when you finally stop doing all the work of keeping something alive that was already finished. What you are grieving is not them but the ease you felt when you did not have to choose your words so carefully.