PASSAGES

I didn't know it at the time but my first serious boyfriend died on the 4th of July. His wife of 50 years died just a few months earlier so I am guessing he didn't have the fire left to give a newly found cancer diagnosis a good fight. 

We met at Hacket's Park in February, 1957 when we were ice-skating with friends. He said later he liked my plaid wool pants. I liked his sense of humor (always #1 on my attraction list). To me, at the height of 17-year-old naivete, he seemed too aggressive, too much of a know-it-all.  On our first date - movies in a blizzard - he held my hand - and asked if I had been doing a lot of dishes.  There was something about him that made me want to see more of him. I started writing my name with his last name. This was the beginning of the classic female-sitting-by-the-phone-waiting-for-him-to-call syndrome. I didn't know it at the time but he was also dating Kitty (eventually his wife) at the same time. So the phone did not ring on a regular basis.  When he took me to the drive-in, my Dad always questioned me about the plot of the movie. Sometimes I made up some amazing screenplays! I was crushed when I learned of his engagement.
Over the years we stayed in touch once in a while...thru his unhappiness with his jobs, my unhappiness with previous husbands, births of kids, etc.  All of a sudden we were "old".  He told me when he turned 60 -  "Just wait til you are this age. You will ache, things will go wrong with you. It's the pits." I thought he was a whiner!  I turned 60 and my knees started to hurt. Luckily I didn't have to deal with what he and Kitty went through and pray that I won't.  I realized when I "grew up" that he would not have been a good husband for me . But it is definitely unsettling to realize a person important to me so long ago and whose history is woven through mine is gone.  I like to picture he and Kitty sailing away on their catamaran on a warm summer day.  Godspeed Paul.