A gentle obituary
"The perspective he has on the world, and the details he sees in it, bowls me over. In many ways we focus in on the same things in life, only I do it calculatedly and very much thought through - he does it instinctively. The result being that he is in some ways a naïve, more innocent version of me."
Those were the words I used to describe him to one of my dearest friends, a couple of years ago, when I was still deep down in that trench that is unrequited love. And now, much later, and after a lot of pain I find myself wanting to remember the reasons for why I loved him. I want to map them out, hold them close, and then put them in a box (heart shaped?) and keep them there as a fond memory, totally separated from who he is today and what we are to each other now. And most importantly, untainted by what he has done to me.
So I conjure up the purest moments. There aren't - in truth - an endless supply to choose from; a lot of them have strands of frustration and longing in them on my part. But there are a few.
Like our first kiss, and how we laid looking into each others eyes for much of a night. I was not in love then, save for in love with his lips, since he kissed me better than I have ever been kissed before (and after).
When he came to meet me after work and I took him to a lecture about space and time and relativity, the first lecture he'd even been to. We met in a winter stormy Stockholm and I remember he took my hand as we walked down the street and I found myself thinking "this is happiness".
That time he studied my hands so closely, holding them in his, turning them over and back again. Touching each finger, completely focused on just that part of me. And how both my hands fitted in one of his.
The feeling of being in bed with him, lying naked afterwards and not even having to pretend to feel relaxed and comfortable. How that held true even when I had ignored society's urges and forgone shaving legs and armpits, and how he pointed out that he liked that. How I felt safe in his love for and fascination with the female body, and for mine, just the way it was.
The look of him, wetting his lips whilst looking at mine, just before a kiss.
Those times when I caught him looking admiringly at me from across a room, whilst I was talking animatedly with friends or family of his.
And our discussions. How he understood me, instinctively, from the start. I love a lot of people, and am close to many. Most of them understand me well, but the understanding has come from dialogue, from talking, sharing and listening. He is one of those few that right from the start knew more about me and how I saw the world than others, simply because it was the was he saw it also.
In hindsight I have learnt that these moments and feelings don't make up a person. The other parts, the ones I assumed were diminishing with time and patience on my part, grew instead. I don't wish to list them, there is no need since I feel them well enough in the wounds they have caused me. Some may scar. I will try to leave them behind me, just as I will try to leave him there, and keep only the moments that beckoned me closer.
I will remember them fondly, cause they are to me perfect little examples of the kind of love I want.
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