WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN...?

This photo was taken at Kensico Dam, upstate NY in 1965 by my very first "serious" boyfriend, initials R.A. I was 17 years old when we first met, and he was 22...impossible to imagine, even more impossible to forget.

At that time, we were crazy in love, but how can anyone that young even begin to know what "love" really is?

We only dated approximately 1-1/2 to 2 years; it was a troubled relationship, filled with arguments, mutual antagonism and unnecessary provocation, even a touch of violence...something, given my background, I could not, would not tolerate. And so, sadly, we broke up.

But now, almost 50 years later, bittersweet memories of those sunlit, happy days come flooding back into my mind, along with the question, what might have been?

We stayed in touch even after breaking up, until one day he told me he wanted to "settle down and have children" and did not want me to interfere with the new relationship he was cultivating at the time. Still, when I heard the news that he had gotten married around 1971-2, it hit me hard, like a punch to the heart. We had once loved each other, how could he just plan to marry someone for the sake of "settling down"? I refused to marry anyone until I was 48 years old, smack dab in the middle of an emotional breakdown. Needless to say, that didn't last long...all of 7 weeks.

But one night around 1975-6, I was living alone in a sweet little Riverdale apartment when the intercom alerted me to a visitor downstairs. To my enormous surprise, it was R.A. and his best friend, Bobby. They were looking for someone else and noticed my name listed among the building's residents. As they explained, they looked at each other and said "could it be??" And so it was. It was a happy visit, and I was sincerely glad to see them both again.

After that, R.A. continued to stay in touch, if sporadically. He had moved upstate with his family, but always called when he traveled to NYC, and sometimes we'd get together for lunch or a walk along the boardwalk of a local beach, or just visit at my home. Nothing romantic, just old friends getting together to share memories, talk and laugh.

Then, one day in 1992, he called and there was an urgency in his voice that I could not ignore. We made a date for him to come visit, and he brought along a still-unreleased recording by Amy Grant (for whom he was working at the time) titled "I Will Remember You." At his request, I listened, not really hearing the words until he was gone. That night, I played the tape again and my heart broke into a million pieces...

I will be walking one day down a street far away, and see a face in the crowd and smile,

Knowing how you made me laugh, hearing sweet echoes of you from the past,

I will remember you...

Look in my eyes while you're near, tell me what's happening here, see that I don't want to say goodbye

Our love is frozen in time, I'll be your champion and you will be mine,

I will remember, I will remember you

Later on when this fire is an ember, later on when the night's not so tender, given time though it's hard to remember, darling, I will be holding, I'll still be holding you,

I will remember you

So many years come and gone, and yet the memory is strong, one word we never could learn...goodbye.

True love is frozen in time, I'll be your champion and you will be mine

I will remember you

So please remember

I will remember you
I will remember you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAolVR5qHRw

If my heart "broke into a million pieces," how must he have felt when I "listened" but just did not hear what he was trying to tell me until he was gone, this time forever?

It is said that first loves are never forgotten. They're tucked away into a corner of one's heart, like a scrapbook, and taken out every so often to 'remember.' 

So, my dear R.A., my very first serious boyfriend, if by chance you are reading this some day, please know that I do still love you and always will. And I am so very, very sorry for not being old enough, wise enough, and sensitive enough to hear the poignant words you wanted so much for me to understand.

You told me that, when you first heard this song, you told Ms. Grant "Amy, you just wrote the story of my life."

It is now also the story of my own...