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This year I lost two good friends.

Neil was from my old hometown. We'd been friends for many years, ever since our sons, pals in high school, ran away on the second day of Rosh Hashanah during their first year of college. They had both decided that two days of going to temple was too much and simply took off. They left brief unclear notes on our kitchen tables.

I knew the other boy had a passport. To my knowledge, my son did not. Could they possibly have gone to Europe?

I called the other boy's house and asked, "Is my son in your house?"

"I was just going to call and ask you the same thing," Neil said. I invited the parents to come over to talk about finding the boys, and that's how we met. (Eventually, I learned that the boys decided it was a good time to see Canada.)

A long and happy relationship followed. What was unique about it was a quality Neil had. He could always make me laugh, always make me let my hair down, always make me loosen up and be a child again because he retained that ability in himself.

He was more affectionate than most men, always ready with a pat on the back and lots of hugs for everyone, male and female. My husband didn't mind it because he understood Neil. My dad, who knew our friend quite well, once questioned why my husband allowed all the hugging of his wife. My husband assured him that the hugging was harmless.

One windy New Year's eve, when we were hosting a party, Neil arrived first. On the doorstep where I greeted him, he looked at my long hair done up in an intricate way.

"Hey, kid," he said, "let it down. It's New Year's." In the spirit of the moment, I took out all the pins and let it fly in the wind. That's when all the guests arrived. There I was, the hostess, standing on the threshold, crazy wild hair whipping across my face. The guests thought we were nuts. My husband and I laughed about this scene for a long time.

And then there was the night of a blizzard when, with Neil and his wife, we tried to go out to dinner, only to find everything closed. In his car, we slid across icy roads, singing risque limericks at the top of our lungs, trying to find someplace to let us in, laughing hysterically at the ridiculousness of the situation. It was just pure joy and craziness. It was pure Neil and I loved him for this. Nobody could get me out of a bad mood as quickly as he could.

My friend Rachel was a different type of person. We met when we bought houses next door to each other in Florida. As we acclimated to the new neighborhood, we began to chat and soon discovered that although we seemed to have no interests or talents in common, we enjoyed talking together. On hot afternoons, I'd often wander into her house and discover later that I'd been there for hours. When I analyzed what we talked about, it boiled down to two things: family and Jewishness, which were her whole life. Religion was not a pose for her. In Brooklyn, she had had a meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He changed her life. In her house, a large photograph of the Rebbe hung in the living room.

She belonged to Chabad in our area and worked ardently for the rabbi and the shul. Although not as observant as one might expect, she was the most sincerely religious person I knew, often speaking to God directly in conversation, just as Tevye did.

Somehow she elicited deeply felt Jewish feelings from me as well, things I probably didn't know I felt until I said them to her, often in Yiddish.

One of my favorite memories of Rachel is break-the-fast dinner at the end of Yom Kippur. For this, we were always invited to her house where she presided over the table like a queen in a long, white lace dress that she wore only on Yom Kippur. She gathered her many friends around a table covered by a magnificent cloth that she herself had embroidered. For hours, guests compared rabbis, sermons, shuls, and Jewish memories. Nobody wanted to leave. It wasn't just the food. It was Rachel.

When Neil and Rachel both died, I thought a lot about the nature of friendship and discovered that these two were the essence of it. Neil brought out the inner me, accepted the child in me, and made me feel good -- no airs, no poses, no restraint. With him, I could just relax, laugh, and be the true me. With Rachel, too, everything I thought and felt was good, enhanced by her sincerity and openness. She loved being Jewish as I did. She lived it every day.

I have learned that with good friends, not only do you like who they are, you like who you are in their presence.

Somebody once said: "Friends are the family you choose for yourself."

Neil and Rachel were like the best of family. I miss them.

Names in this article have been changed to protect the privacy of the families. Toby Rosenstrauch, an award-winning columnist, lives in Boynton Beach, Fla.