In 1970, I was just a 20 year old girl in St Louis who fell in love with Dan Gould. He was both larger than life and yet a quietly intimate, caring friend.
We discussed books, met with writers, bought art in Quebec, had the most delicious meals in cities all over the east coast. He took me to Prince Edward Island. He gave me intricate vintage jewelry and beaded handbags from 1904, He bought me uniquely beautiful bohemian clothes in Philadelphia. He stole a large low hanging teardrop crystal from the chandelier of the Delmonico Hotel in New York. He wore modern three-piece suits with his blonde hair long and flowing. I wore stylish (I guess) hot pants and long brown suede lace-up boots to my corporate job. I was nearly 6 ft tall in heels, lots of redhair, and Dan was 5'10. We were a pair and we were in love, joyously.
We read the newspapers every Sunday morning he was in Chicago and he always made breakfast...canadian ham, biscuits with apricot jam, scrambled eggs with cream cheese and hot, dark, bold coffee in a carafe.
He was an exquisite, passionate lover with whom I would have gone anywhere had he asked...and he did, but not soon enough, I guess. So I fled him, literally, and ended up with a new life in California. A new life!?? I was just a young girl.
Ten months later, Dan found me, sent a letter asking me to come to him. He had just moved to the Netherlands and his letter included a one-way plane ticket to Amsterdam. I was already pregnant, in love with a young boy, and happy in California. I let him get away... the most lovable man on earth.
We lost track of each other for 40 years but, then, found each other on Facebook in 2010. Just little notes back and forth by FB and email. Both older with health issues now. Me in St Louis, happy with my bulldog Cookie and the current man with whom I have shared a life for 12 years...and Dan, always with many beautiful women...but still I always daydreamed about Dan.
And here I am now,awake in the middle of the night sobbing quietly to remember that he lived to see his beloved Chicago Cubs baseball team actually win the World Series.
I will search for Dan forever, in spirit, or in life after death, if there is such a thing. It is very different today, right now, to live in a world without Dan Gould. This is my first day doing so. Others have died and I suppose I will bear this death, too. I am not sure.
Who knew that one day a person could be 20 years old and, in the blink of an eye, she is nearly 70 years old mourning a lover she has not seen since he was 32 years old.
Hennessy Cognac I raise in salute to Daniel Gould...I would have taken good care of him to the end.
