Gratitude: Alex Guest

Every once in a while, I google people I'm sad to have lost touch with, just to find out if they're findable. Either I find them and think "Ah, that's nice" or I don't, and then I wonder that it's possible to be hard-to-find in this day and age. One who had very little online presence was Alex Guest, the other half of my first real, "grown-up" relationship, and so it was a surprise to find him this time. And very, very sad. 

Alex and I were together for nearly five years, the first three in person, the last bit long-distance, with a prolonged and not-very-nice break-up. He remained one of the most important people in my life, nonetheless. This is perhaps inevitable, seeing as we got together when I was 19 and he was 20. I learned a fair amount about being a grown-up while with him (or at least about pretending to be a grown-up, which is mostly what I did in my 20s) and I learned a huge amount about a huge number of things from him. 

Alex—which is to say Alex in his early 20s, because that's the only Alex I can speak of—was deliberate. That is the best description I can think of for him and he (as I knew him) was the best person for that word.

We got to know each other in the student Senate at UMass. The first time I recall him speaking to me (or noticing me at all), he was sitting right in front of me at Senate. He turned around (apropos of nothing in particular, as far as I knew) and said "I worry about you." I didn't know what he meant, but I was desperate to. I recommend that as a pick-up line. I'm not 100% sure that's what he meant it as, but, boy, it worked. We went on to work together as assistants to the Student Trustee (me) and the Student Government President (him), one of the best jobs I've probably ever had. I remember so many late nights in that office, in a group we called CLAP (Celeste, Lynne, Alex and Paul), plotting and laughing. 

In that office, I remember learning from Alex that one could get an "Incomplete" in a course—something that had never crossed my mind to imagine. He got them with regularity because he was never quite finished with the tomes he'd write as term papers—beautifully written with watercolor cover pages featuring his architectural calligraphy. (He seemed to care most about this for Women's Studies courses—a couple of professors commanded his especial respect. I have no idea how I'd react if I received papers well above the prescribed page limit with handpainted cover pages, and I wonder what those profs thought.)  I was enamored by his perfectionism. I admired him so deeply—perhaps more deeply than anyone I'd ever met in person at that point. There were so many ways in which I wanted to be Alex. His calm. His thoughtfulness (in both senses). His intelligence. His principles. He was soft-spoken most of the time, but would rise to a verbal challenge, and had a beautiful singing voice that he was rightly confident in.

So many books I've read because of him—not just when I was with him, but because he had a role in shaping my tastes and making me think about what I need to know. And I learned many profound lessons about racism both directly from him and as a consequence of being with him.

When people ask where my child's distinctive name came from, I tell them "It was my ex-boyfriend's landlady's name." She was semi-resident owner of the airy house he shared with other students before we moved in together. (The house of the first futon I ever met.) He admired this woman so much—a feminist, a writer, a traveler. When I mentioned the name to Phil, he didn't care it was my ex-boyfriend's landlady's name. He loved it too. Thank you for that, Alex.

He died in November, but I've just learned of it this week from that idle googling. As far as I know, he was not in touch with any of the mutual friends who are still in my life, but I see from the guestbook on the obituary that our Northampton housemates had learned of his death some months after.

While I've been sitting with this knowledge, it's been interesting to feel the difference between learning of the death of a friend who I thought I'd see again and learning of Alex's death. Alex and I had been so long apart that I had no real belief that I'd ever see him again. It had been a long time since I'd had thoughts like "Alex would like that" or "I'll have to tell Alex that". 

But he was at the top of my list of people I should apologize to. I have thought many times of writing to him with an apology. I suppose that's part of the reason I look him up every once in a while. I always came to the conclusion that apologizing at this point would be a selfish act: inserting myself into his life in order to give me some kind of closure. I'm not sure I'd apologize for the thing he might expect me to apologize for. (He never apologized for his contribution to the doomed part of our history.) But Alex, I made a wrong decision about how to support you when something devastating happened. It was a selfish decision, superficially made for financial reasons, but, at its heart, a decision made from cowardice. 

A few years ago, I found our correspondence in the closet of my childhood bedroom. Following his lead, I kept copies of my own outgoing letters and bound them with his responses. Oh, they were embarrassing to read. I can't really apologize for what a pain in the ass I was at that age. How needy and self-centered. I was young and insecure and an idiot. I think I just have to give myself a free pass for being an idiot in my early 20s. But, god, Alex, you put up with a lot from me. I'm a bit ashamed that you did. But I'm so grateful for our time together.

I cannot post a photo because they are all inaccessible during our building works, but perhaps one day I'll add one. I love you, Alex.