Gone, gone forever

After a trip I made this morning, something I suspected some months ago has been at least 90% confirmed. My wife had booked an appointment at the hairdressers in our neighbouring town, so I dropped her off, and after undergoing the much less complicated procedure required to have my own hair cut, I was left with an hour or so to kill. I decided to take a drive down to the place I used to work, in the hope that one of my former colleagues, who I always got on well with, would be on duty, a hope which proved to be in vain. In heading to my former workplace, I passed a certain house, where a certain person was living while I was working there. Judging by the way the housefront has changed, different car, no child-related paraphernalia as was always the case, I'm pretty sure DBJ and his family have moved. Not that, on a schoolday, I would have had any expectation of seeing him today in any case, but knowing where he lived was the last tenuous connection I had to the boy. And now that seems, to all appearances, to be gone. In practical terms, I suppose, it doesn't make any difference - after all, I never even spoke to him in any organised way, still less had any sort of relationship with him, but I can't help but feel an ache of melancholy. It's debatable whether I could really say that I was in love with him, perhaps in love with my image of him would be a more sensible assessment, but there's no doubt at all that he, that beautiful boy, changed my life, brought my boyloving side back to the surface after years of suppression and denial, albeit completely without active involvement on his part. But now I'm never going to see him again, in any realistic circumstances. Coincidentally, I found the closest candidate yet for a 'lookalike' picture of him last night, on one of the eye candy sites I frequent, but it still wasn't any more than a 30%-40% likeness, the hair, in particular, being all wrong. If I ever do find a suitable picture, I'll post it, just so everyone can see what all the fuss was about. Because 'was', it seems, is now the operative word.

Love & best wishes to all (and most of all to you, J)
Sammy B