Wednesday 15 February, 2006

My first boyfriend

I have spent this morning looking for a photo of my first serious boyfriend. His name was Robert Waller and the photo I have of him was taken when we went to Bali, 24 years ago (I was 18, he was 20). He has a soft and mischievous look on his face. He is playing with monkeys.

He was a tall man with blonde hair and blue eyes - frankly, he was a real spunk and when I have happened on that photo over the years I have been shocked all over again by how good looking he was. That photo was taken not long before we broke up (we went out for three years) and is the Robert I want to remember - though by the time that photo was taken drugs, and anger were already beginning to take their toll on him. This morning I got a message that I have half expected to recieve for years - he is dead. The funeral was a week ago. It is hard to decipher the circumstances of his death: from what an old friend of his, and mine, could gather when he was found they had to go through his wallet to identify him. I don't know if that means he had been dead for a while, or that he died violently. I don't know if he died from an overdose though, from what I can gather, drugs remained a serious problem for him. In some ways it seems remarkable that he made it to 43 years of age. I hadn't seen him for 22 years and when I have thought of him it has been with anger because our relationship became very traumatic. But today, I choose to remember the beauty and gentleness I saw in that eighteen-year-old boy I first met, and to mourn the fact that he lived such a difficult life and died such a lonely death.

I still can't find the photo, but when I find it, I will post it. RIP Robert Waller.

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