All my life's a circle;
But I can't tell you why;
Season's spinning round again;
The years keep rollin' by.

In a few days I'll be attending a memorial service for my old love, the first real love of my life.

I've had a lot of losses in my life but nothing that has cut like this.

We were almost high school sweethearts; his best friend from Grady High School fixed up a blind date for his buddy by asking his fiancee from Druid Hills High, gee, didn't she have any single friends running around? And she knew one.

For nearly 10 years we were a couple, passionate and goofy like only teenagers can be, and we practiced a lot of stupidities on one another over the years. There were some very good times and some very wretched ones. We thought about getting married but that never quite worked out for what turned out to be a lot of excellent reasons.

He loved me and I loved him, but he was jealous and controlling and angry. Years later he told me "I was so afraid someone better was going to take you away." And like life does you, what you most fear will indeed come to pass, and that's exactly what happened and I ran away.

Funny thing, though; we weren't done. My family had adopted him and even after we were so not talking to one another he was very much a member of my tribe; for quite a few years he was there more than I was, truth be told. He became my brother Eddy's closest friend. He went to work for my mother for a while. She saved his life by taking him to the hospital when he had a ruptured appendix; from that time on, for sure he was ours, he never forgot her kindness in that painful time. So I got used to it, and accepted it. I never really stopped loving him, even in those times when I didn't like him very much. He was another member of my messy family.

Over the years I'd hear from him from time to time, mostly when things were not so good. And we'd hang for a little while and then he'd say or do something pissy and I'd stomp off again and a few years would pass and we wouldn't communicate. He didn't believe in email and he moved and I even lost track of him for a bit.

So for reasons I can't comprehend this last Christmas I thought about Mrs. Carte's little bundle of day after Christmas Joy and I Googled him up -- and lo and behold, the boy was in the web business. Had an address and a phone number. And I said hi and happy birthday and how you doing?

This time around he was a different, changed, mellow man. Over a few months we disposed of all our issues. Explanations were given; discussions ensued; apologies were made. I found I really liked the man John grew into. He was quite wonderful, even as he struggled with his life and all the problems in it and I discovered I truly enjoyed his email company. He had moved a few hundred miles away and was building a new life, a new career, being his own business sort of guy and was, as new business owners are, too busy to talk much. But the communication we had was joyful and sweet and unfettered by any of the stuff from the past.

We found that all the negative dropped away and what was left was love and deep appreciation of one another. I looked forward to more of this for time to come.

And this last Wednesday he had one of those massive heart attacks that comes out of nowhere and turns out the lights in an instant. Only 51.

I'm so grateful the last thing he ever said to me was "Jenny, I love you."

I loved him too. I always will. That, I guess, is the circle game.