I’m certain people say good-bye to a friend or loved one hundreds of thousands of times a year, not knowing it was their final farewell. My good-bye to my first love was like that.

I met him during a revival at my church. Many local churches of the same denomination all came to the same revival. So it was an opportunity to meet a lot of different young people. All the young people showed up, dressed in our Sunday best.

I would say that we were instantly attracted to one another. He was very handsome, blonde, blue-eyed, and an incredibly good singer. I still remember our first kiss. It was January, freezing cold, and he told me to meet him behind the church. I was seventeen but so nervous, and shaking from that and the cold. It was a clear night, and I remember the smell of his leather jacket and after shave, the slight scratch of stubble that brushed my cheek, and, after we kissed, looking up at a million glistening stars overhead. We dated for several months, I was absolutely head over heels in love with him, perhaps in a way you can only be with your first love. I think that he truly did love me, but not in the same way. And so, being an attractive young man, he strayed. And it broke my heart. We probably broke up and got back together again at least twice. The last time we broke up for good, and he actually left for a different state. He wanted to start a career singing. I went on to get married, divorced a few months later, and started dating a man that I cared for quite a lot. It was during this time my first love reached out to me

He was back in our town, visiting his family. He told me he wanted to see me and I agreed to meet. I couldn’t wait to see him. We met in his friend’s apartment, where he said that he was staying. The place was a pigsty, it even smelled terrible. But I didn’t care.

I thought maybe he was going to tell me how much he loved me, and that he wanted to get back together. But when I saw him I was immediately confused. He gave me a half-hearted hug and looked miserable. He talked about how unhappy he was, how difficult starting a career in music turned out to be. He said he had realized that while he was talented, he was nothing special, and was a little angry at everyone that had told him he could be a successful singer. I told him to move home, and be with friends and family, that he could get his job at the garage again. I told him I missed him and had never stopped loving him. He asked if I thought it could work between us again, and I said I thought it could. He asked me if I wanted to kiss him, to see if there was any spark left. And I said I did. I drew close to him, his face so familiar to me, and I put my arms around him and put my lips on his. I kissed him with all the passion that I had. All the passion that I had ever felt for him, I drew it up from my heart and poured it out into that kiss. When we drew back, I was dizzy. I didn’t care about my present relationship. I was ready to leave everything to be with him. His head was down and then he looked up at me with sadness, and he said, “See? Nothing.” He had felt nothing. There was a depth to his sadness that I could never hope to reach. I was absolutely bewildered and I didn’t know how to help him, or to make him feel better. We talked a while longer, and I asked him to call me again, but we really had nothing more to say. I left. But later I wished I hadn’t left him. I wished I’d tried harder to help him somehow.

It was not long after this meeting I heard that my beautiful and talented and sad first love drove his car into a tree and died. I couldn’t bring myself to go to his funeral. I was afraid to face his family, who had blamed me a little for his straying off the straight and narrow those years ago. I found out he had a girlfriend, and I prayed she would be pregnant, so there would be a part of him to live on, but she wasn’t. I never knew if it was an accident or if he had killed himself like the rumors said. Such a terrible tragedy.

I think of that kiss even now. I think of those two years that we spent together, and how happy we were, at least at first. I remember the innocence of my love, my steadfast belief that we would be together forever. That kiss was a farewell, but I didn’t know.

Sunday Confessionals : Farewells