First love.... D'you remember?

That heart that beat so loud you thought everyone could hear it?

That blush that rose from somewhere near your waist up to the tips of your ears?

The wanting to be near in case he touched your arm?

That yearning that he would arrive soon when everyone else was already there?

That knowledge that he was "the one"?

Adolescence is a wondrously awful time, isn't it?   But we usually get over it, find a new love and eventually get together with the right one, and perhaps live happily ever after.

When I was 17, some girlfriends and I met a whole group of lads, we liked their company and they liked ours.  One of them was my first love.   And what I described above was how it felt.  Let's call him Col.  Like several of the lads he had his own car.  We used to fill the cars up and take off for somewhere every Sunday night, usually to a pub, where we would order a toasted sandwich or similar, and sit talking and laughing over a glass of something until closing time.  He was always there.  I desperately wanted him, but the other lads teased him unmercifully, and he never did ask me out - although some 5 years later I bumped into him at a party and he said "what about if we........".   I was over him by then and so able to say "Sorry Col, you should have asked me way back when".  I met the real love of my life about a year later and we are still together.  Col met his partner too, and that, as they say, is life.

Until yesterday, at a funeral, I came across him again in the company of a couple of the other lads -   men with a few lines and less hair now.  We spoke in general terms about people we knew, and what we were all doing, and where we were living, and it was nice.  Until it was time to go home and the most bizarre thing happened.  I suddenly found him standing behind me. I spouted the usual niceties, and said  "Bye then, Col, nice to have seen you again".  He looked me straight in the eye and said "should I know you?, who are you?".

Just for a split second there I thought he was taking the mickey, but why would he do that?  I told him my name.  I told him where I used to live - he had been there many times for parties, or meet-ups prior to going out with the crowd.  But no.  It was clear that I had been wiped entirely from his memory.  And then he said  "I'm sorry, I have memory problems".  I could only say I was sorry too.

Things I wouldn't have minded talking about with him were unavailable to him now and it made me feel so sorry.  Not just because of our shared past, but because he obviously has something wrong which is not dementia, but who knows what; and  I shed a silent tear for his lost memories.