In memoriam

"Golden lads and lasses must, like chimney sweepers come to dust."

By happenstance, I found out that one of my old boyfriends had died. He was always a romantic figure to me, good-looking, smart and rebellious. He always did the unexpected. He wasn't exactly mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but close enough for southern Ohio. I broke up with him because I couldn't stand the ups and downs of a relationship with someone basically undependable. I don't even know if he realized I had broken up with him, because he kept coming in and out of my life. The last I saw of him was when we both graduated and he went hurtling into the world like a rocket. I heard of and from him once in a while afterwards, then I went off somewhere and lost touch with him. I always wondered what had become of him.

Well, he is dead, and has been for quite a while. That certainly answers the question of why he was not at our last reunion. But I was amazed to discover that this iconoclastic figure had ended up as a small-town school superintendent.