May 14, 2009

Travis died on Sunday. He was barely 29. 29 years and 10 days old. No rhyme, no reason. He was walking through his house and just died. He. Just. Died.

He was my first real boyfriend. At 15, he was my first love. Like all high school relationships, it didn’t last and now I can’t even remember why. We broke up and I was heartbroken, but it quickly passed and that was that. I never saw or heard from him again. I heard about him from time to time during the first few years after our breakup, but I was over him. I didn’t feel for him anymore. Still, I was curious though. Back in November I was thinking about him. Nostalgically, not romantically. Anyway, I asked a couple of friends. There was zero desire to rekindle any flame. I guess I was just curious to see how his life turned out. His childhood was very difficult and I wondered which roads he had taken. I got scattered info that he was married, divorced and maybe remarried. Someone said he had a child and another said that, aside from that child, he’d just had another child that passed away shortly after birth. I felt awful for him. After that, I really thought nothing else about him until Monday when I heard that he had died the previous day. I was really shocked and first thought it was someone playing games. Someone confirmed it yesterday. I wasn’t exactly sad as much as I just felt very weird. I wasn’t sure how to feel. Travis isn’t someone that I know anymore. I haven’t seen or spoken to him in many years, but at the same time we shared so much with each other. A first love leaves an impression and sharing our first sexual experiences, etc… that’s not something I’ll forget. I thought about going to the funeral, but I kept going back and forth on it. I finally decided that if there was any part of me that wanted to go then I should go because there are no second chances for that sort of thing. So I went. By myself. At the last minute. I sat alone in the back and looked around at all of his family. I didn’t know anyone and nobody knew me. I got a lot of curious looks, but I was glad I went. I wanted to see him one more time. I wanted to look at his face and make sure that the dead person there in that coffin was the same person that I loved so long ago. I wanted to see if he looked the same… he did. More mature, more handsome, but the same. The same features, same nose, same chin. His mouth was different. His mouth was pale and his once bright cherry red lips were glued together now and totally white. I only glanced at him for a split second before I walked on. I wanted to look away as fast as possible, but part of me also wanted to stop and stare. I wanted to look at his hair and his hands and see if they were like I remember or if time and work had aged them. I wanted to touch his face and see if was still as smooth and baby-ish as it used to be. I didn’t though. I didn’t see any of that. I recognized several of the pall bearers on the first row and they recognized me too. That made me feel so uncomfortable and seriously out of place. I felt stupid for being there like I was being disrespectful. I spoke to no one and left immediately after the service. I sat in my car for a few minutes before I drove away. I went back to work and everything went back to normal. I still don’t know how I feel about it. How is one supposed to feel about someone they haven’t seen in years but used to love so dearly? At least as dearly as a little 15 year old girl can love. I hoped the service would answer some of my questions about his life, as far as what kind of person he turned out to be. What did he do with his life? What did he love and hate? How did his dreams turn out? It didn’t though. Nothing was answered. The service was more of a sermon than anything. He said nothing personal about Travis at all. Nothing. All I know is that he has a little boy now who is without a daddy. I don’t know how old the picture was, but the little boy looked to be about 4 or 5. Also, the obituary said he was engaged to be married. She must be devastated. A person never moves past that kind of loss.

Time doesn’t make things better, as people always claim. It makes them worse. I wish I didn’t know that to be true, but I do.