We got together in March 1979. I was 19 - he was 34. I was a student in one of his classes (in the 70s this was not considered inappropriate, dear reader, if you are under 30)
I say got together rather than started going out, as for the first three months, we didn't - not wanting to be seen in public while I was still in his class. I think that's one of the reasons we became so close: we had a lot of time to talk and 'bond' in our own little world at the start of our relationship without any other influences. And neither of us could quite believe what was happening - it seemed sort of magical, when on the surface we should have had little in common - he was a highly educated, sophisticated man who had travelled widely, had Socialist leanings, loved the outdoors, while I was a sheltered Catholic virgin who had never even been out of my own state, had been brought up in a very conservative family and wouldn't have cared if I never went outside again.
Anyway, the other day I suddenly thought of a weird and sad coincidence. The date we first made contact outside college, I asked him to come to a pub to listen to the folk group I played in, and then a friend of his called minutes later to ask him to the same pub - was the 23rd March. He died on March 30 2006. How strange it would have been if we'd realised on that magical night that he had exactly 27 years and 1 week to live.
Morbid, huh?
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1 comment:
If you had known ahead of time would you have changed things and not have had what you enjoyed? Sometimes we lose too much when we think too much about the IFs.
I had a friend once tell me that IF ants had machine guns picnics would be hell. I think maybe he was right.
Sherry
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