It's a Keith Hancock song and it's called "Absent Friends" - I understand that Keith wrote it after his father died. I learnt the words from Vin's recording, so may not have got them all right.....

ABSENT FRIENDS -  Keith Hancock

I always found when you were around
You'd help me through sorrow, you'd ease all my fears
For you always had time for troubles of mine
A shoulder to cry on, a listening ear

Chorus:

Time heals wounds they say
Time takes the pain away
I wonder why it never happened for me
It's years since you went away
I miss you night and day
Why you had to go is a mystery to me

The things that you'd do, the pictures of you
Are printed for life on the back of my mind
You were always so sure, your ways were so pure
Through faults and the bad times a lover stayed blind

What seemed important then becomes trivial when
Fate deals the card that forces your hand
And the places we've been, together we've seen
No more in the future, no more in the plan

It's all very strange, but when you went I changed
It just seemed to happen as day turned to day
And I don't understand, is it part of a plan
Can one person grow as another one fades