Pause for a Brief Eulogy

There are certain people who come into your life, for however long, be they friends, lovers or family and by virtue of your relationship with that person, the choices you make because of them,
you are pushed, pulled and shaped into the person that you are today.

Everyone has at least a handful.

Jon was such a person for me.

We briefly dated when I was 16 and he was 19.

I won't go into details except that like many relationships when you are young, it ended very very messy.

Everyone has at least one or two of those, I am sure.

It took years to pull myself out of that experience and I shall spare you the details.

I'm sure some of you who were there are already quite familiar with them.

We had closure though, good closure. We talked one evening a few years afterwards and sorted out our business.

We parted on good terms.

I have not seen Jon for 16 years and only spoke to him occasionally on Facebook.

But when I got the news yesterday that he had died suddenly, it brought me to my knees.

Not literally. I am happy to report that I was in fact, sitting and that was a good thing.

I went to his Facebook page and wrote that I was crying and yelling "Asshole" at the sky for making me feel that way.

I wrote that I was sure that if there was an afterlife, he is there, having a laugh at us all.

I then deleted it-thinking that it's probably not a good thing to refer to the dead party as an asshole.

At least not this early in the game.

There are people in our lives that shape and pull us, leading us to make choices based on our relationships with them.

They make us into the people we are at the moment.

 Everyone has at least a handful, be they friends, lovers or family.

Jon was one of those people for me.

We dated when I was 16 and he was 19.

I say again that I will not go into details except that we were together briefly,  but the aftermath of those months took years to get through.

I last saw him perhaps 16 years ago.

I ran into him at a restaurant while out on a date with the man I ended up marrying. The man who I am still married to and still truly in love with to this day.

But one never forgets first love, no matter how it turns out in the end.

You just don't forget.

I am not entirely comfortable with my reaction when I heard and how I am feeling right now.

My experience of his death will be quite small compared to the others who are close to him, who will miss his presence. Who will feel that empty space.

My heart is heavy for them.

When I called him "asshole" on his page, I meant something else entirely.

What I really meant to say was:

I am really really sad that you are gone.

I truly hope that you were able to find whatever you were looking for.

I regret nothing.

And thank you.