Seize the Day
(originally appeared in culturecloud)

I learned yesterday that my first girlfriend had died of a sudden brain aneurism. She was thirty-nine, and left behind a husband and a ten year old son. We hadn't been in touch in more than fifteen years; the last letter I wrote her was full of showing off about how interesting my life was, and largely free of the candor and courage she'd shown in writing me in the first place.

It was autumn when we fell in love, in a fifteen-year-old kind of way — deeply, naively, eternally — and early winter a little more than a year later when we split. Over the past twenty-four hours, I've been frustrated at how difficult it is to recall the details of our time together; then, overcome by the memories that did surface. The breakup had been so painful, and the aftermath so bitter; by the time I was old enough to separate the circumstances from the person, and understand how we could have become friends again, our lives had taken us in different directions, and we never did see each other again.

It's small comfort, but the best I can find, to know that she'd lived a good life. Back in high school, she'd been all about art; it was she who taught me about dada and surrealism, and brought me to a deeper understanding of the connection between thought and expression. At the time of her death, she was a professor of art history; a MySpace post by a grieving former student reveals the importance of her influence in his work, and also makes clear that she still knew how to straighten out a slacker when he had it coming. Her vita describes a full agenda of talks given, papers authored, collections curated, ideas cultivated, classes taught, lives changed.

I wish I could have learned more about it directly from her, instead of through Google. I wish I'd reached out to her just once over the years, instead of wondering if I ever would, just to say hi. I never would have imagined that she wouldn't see forty; but would another decade have made any difference? In any event, it's too late now. And it's not about me anyway. Although I'm not a religious man by nature, today my prayers are with William, her husband, and Miles, her son.

Don't wait to make that call. Don't lose track of the people who have been important to you until they're lost forever. And show the ones around you a little extra love today, or a lot. Do it for Kristie.