I sat for a couple more hands and then felt so uncomfortable that I said that I was going back home. Everyone at the table felt the tension so no one said much except good-bye and off I went. I got into my car and was running it while I lit a cigarette and out comes Roy-Roger. He wanted to get in the car and drive around and talk awhile. OK, I’m thinking. Apparently, our breakup was a complete surprise to him. I was only 18-19 at the time and commitment from me was pretty unreliable. I still liked him and I complimented him on his family. He couldn’t seem to overcome our separation. He had tried and tried and even got married and had a child with all the doubts that he was always supposed to end up with me. Our talk really was in my lap. I needed to assure him that if we were meant to be together, we would have. Besides, he had a Jewish last name and my father would have done anything to nix that breed of son-in-law.

Here I was married, divorced and in love again and this poor man in my car was crying about wasted time. How sad, and how much I wanted to help. The only thing I could do was reassure him that he, indeed, was fortunate with his family, and I was not supposed to be with him – too young, too wild.

We kissed goodbye and he went back to the table.

A few months later my friend Arnold called me. He asked me if I’d heard from Roy (Roger). I hadn’t and then Arnold told me Roger had died the night before. He’d had a brain aneurism and was gone immediately. With that blast to my solar plexus I realize that our chance meeting had to do with closure so he could leave knowing he had done a great job after all. I am so glad that he passed with his wife knowing he was hers and their baby. I still miss him 25 years later.