The best thing you can do for an old friend is to take the first step to making the meeting possible. Perhaps on parting you felt what this poem by Du Fu, a Chinese poet, expresses:
A Toast for Men Yun-Ch’ing
BY DU FU
TRANSLATED BY FLORENCE AYSCOUGH
Illimitable happiness,
But grief for our white heads.
We love the long watches of the night, the red candle.
It would be difficult to have too much of meeting,
Let us not be in hurry to talk of separation.
But because the Heaven River will sink,
We had better empty the wine-cups.
To-morrow, at bright dawn, the world’s business will entangle us.
We brush away our tears,
We go—East and West.