Of Boyfriends Past and Lost Chances

To the child of my high school boyfriend,

I want to take a few minutes of your time to tell you how special your father was way back in the day. He could not have been any sweeter or more generous with me.  I have no idea what kind of man he grew into, nor husband or father.  But I know this, he was funny and he was gentle and up for adventure.  I always felt completely safe with him and that is a huge deal for me.

When we knew each other I was at a place in my life that was not good.  I was struggling to figure out who I was and what my place in the world would be.  I had no self esteem and covered that up with being loud, out-going, gregarious and having a devil-may-care attitude about tomorrow. Let's face it, I was a mess.  A loud, crazy-acting person who could not find her place to fit in.  And he saw me as worthy of spending time with.  And as a person worthy of opening his heart and life to.  I never felt judged or coming up short.

We went to the movies, restaurants that he most likely could not afford, concerts, bars, parties at the lake, all the usual high school stuff.  And there was lots of craziness going on.  Picture the movie, "Dazed and Confused".  That was parties at the lake.  But I always knew he would make sure we got home safe.  He spent many hours helping me study to pass a class that I hated or I would have never graduated.  I really didn't even care about school at that point, but he still helped me.

After we graduated I moved away.  I moved 600 miles away.  Not because I wanted to and not because I wanted to be that far, but because I had no other place to live.  Circumstances being what they were, it was best that I left my home.  And I am eternally grateful for the chance I was given at a fresh start and this is where I ended up meeting my husband, but it was really sad for me to leave. We had no concept of what a long distance relationship would be like, especially back in the day of super expensive long distance calls or slow hand-written letters. But we tried it for a while, a good year of writing, occasional phone calls and even less-occasional visits. And then we made the decision to just give in and call it quits.

And I missed him.  There were things that came up in my life and he would be the first person in my mind to call and share these things. But that time had passed and it was just not appropriate for me to do that, so I missed the opportunity to re-connect and stay friends.

So when I came across his sister on Facebook a few years ago, I immediately friended her and was glad to get in touch with his family again.  I knew that he had married and had a child, as had I and I wanted to be respectful of those boundaries and not reach out to him directly.  Occasionally, when I would speak with his sister she would say that he was very glad that she and I had gotten in touch and that he was happy to get my news through her.  I thought we would bridge that gap and communicate directly sometime in the future.

But life being what it is, that future was not to be.  The day that I got a message saying that he had passed away from a heart attack in the middle of the night was just unbelievable.  I had to read the message 3 times before it soaked in to my brain that this is what had happened.  I kept putting the word "almost" in there, as in, we almost lost him last night.  Why would my brain do that?  Made me wonder what else I am missing.  This hit me like a ton of bricks.  I know people say that but it truly felt like that.  And I mourned the loss of his life, I mourned the lost chance to ever get to see him and look in his eyes and say thank you.  Thank you for all the times you were sweet, loving, protective and strong.  Missed opportunities to tell someone how much you appreciate them are just so damn sad.  For weeks afterwards I had vivid dreams of him and I could smell him.

I have been working hard the past few years with a therapist and going to Al-Anon and learning how to not be such a codependent person.  And one of the things I have learned is to quit making decisions based on fear.  I don't want fear of the unknown or whatever to rule me and keep me from doing the things that I know I should.  One of those things that I should be doing is grabbing opportunities to say the things that should be said.  Say the thank yous, say the I love yous, and mostly say the I am so sorrys.

So, to the child of my high school boyfriend, I want to say how deeply sorry I am that your father was taken from you too soon.  I am sorry that he and I were not friends and didn't get to sit with you and tell you stories of when he was young, handsome, sweet and loving.  The story of us driving to Ft. Worth to a Gregg Allman concert and getting lost on the way home, THAT was a great story.  I hope that other friends from different stages of his life will find a way to share memories with you, too.

I will close this out with our song.