I still remember when Family Ties went off the air. It was the last really good sitcom about a family. It was a comedy, but it dealt with political and personal issues. Stuff happened. Like when Elyse's aunt got Alzheimer's. Or remember when their house got broken into and Elyse and Steven decide to get a gun? And then Mr. Keaton pulls the gun on Alex because he thinks he's an intruder. Sure, Tina Yothers had terrible hair but it was an era. It was a place in time. It was a show about a safe, happy, functional family and I can't think of one that's been on like that since.

I cried when Family Ties went off the air. I was about 10 years old and I still remember lying awake in my bedroom sobbing about it. I could still hear the sound of the television down the hall, but there was some kind of void in knowing that I'd never learn anything more about what happened to the Keaton family.

Fifteen years later I woke up at 4 a.m. sobbing about the demise of another show. Friends.

I'm not a huge Friends defender. I don't think it was the most intelligent sitcom. It wasn't as witty as Seinfeld or as outrageous as Sex in the City. I recall with distaste an episode that centred around some sort of mysterious skin ailment Ross had developed on his bottom. (On the website they say it's his 'lower back,' but I swear it was his ASS.) And the Monica fatsuit was funny for about 30 seconds in 1997. I'm not a Friends fanatic. I didn't even watch the entire final season.

And yet, there I am at 4am, sobbing and remembering the last scene where their apartment is all packed up. I can't get the starkness of all those empty shelves out of my mind.

When I first saw Friends I was 17. I had never surfed the Internet, never kissed a boy. I was trying to figure out what university I would go to and I really wanted to be an actress. We lived overseas and didn't get American television at the time but my brother used to tape the episodes and bring them to us at Christmas. Those tapes had big black magic marker letters on them TV Vol I, Vol II, Vol III. We watched them all in a row.

At my high school reunion the choir sang I'll Be There For You a capella. This one girl, Lisa, had this ridiculous grin on her face as she did the harmonies for 'your love life's D-O-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!'

Then in university I used to watch Friends at Amy's house. We were obsessed with the Ross and Rachel drama, and equally obsessed with E.R., which was on the same night. (Why don't they cancel THAT damn show! It's so tiresome now!) Once or twice on one of these girl's nights I remember hiding in Amy's bathroom crying because some boy had broken my heart.

Friends was there when three-quarter length sleeves started to be fashionable. For a while you couldn't buy anything with a full-length sleeve! And my roommate Sarah swore it all originated on the show. When all the Friends girls grew their hair out, so did I. (Though I never succumbed to the Rachel.)

When I moved back to Ottawa in 2001 I caught every single episode in syndication. I was a little lonely, a little isolated. I remember talking to a friend about how Friends were like my friends. I actually felt like I knew them.

When Monica and Chandler move in together I was actually sad about it! I was sad that Rachel wasn't going to live there anymore! It was the end of an era. Friends were growing up and so was I.

I didn't watch it that much the past few years. I didn't tape it when I went out, like I did for Buffy. But when I went to New York in December I took a cab to Greenwich Village and walked around in the snow by myself and kind of wondered where their apartment building might be. I sort of believe that New York is this parallel universe and the cops from Law and Order, the women from S&theC and the Friends all really live there.

It may only be a coinidence that I told my employer how I'm leaving to go to law school on the same day as the Friends finale, but it doesn't feel like one. An era is over, in my life and theirs. There will never be another Friends. There hasn't been another MASH, another Seinfeld, or another Family Ties, so why hold out hope that this show can be replicated? It was comforting. It was something I could watch when my heart was breaking, or my mother had cancer, or my stomach hurt so bad that it felt like an internal organ was about to explode. It was the chicken soup of television and it sucks that I'm never going to have fresh chicken soup again.