Googling

 We are finally home from Louisiana. I’m extremely tired, because I had absolutely no sleep last night. Good thing I didn’t have to drive. 

I mentioned when I married Kevin that he’s my 2nd husband, but the fourth time in my life that I’ve found love. The first time was when I was about 18, and I ended this relationship when I was about 20 or so. We also kept in touch online here and there over the years.  (Every once in a blue moon- not literally.) 

The supermarket chain that we do inventory at in Louisiana always pages their store managers by “Mr. Last Name”. At one store we did, the store manager had the same last name as a public figure that my first boyfriend couldn’t stop talking about when this public figure made the news last time we had an online conversation.  I’m not going to say who the public figure was, just that he’s largely disliked but my first boyfriend seemed to admire him. I couldn’t care less, but the way they kept paging the manager at that store all day calling him by that last name brought my first boyfriend to mind.  Then when we got back to the motel, I saw my favorite YouTube channel that “narrates near death experiences” had a new video so I clicked. This NDE featured a 75 year old woman whose first love dumped her after she had an abortion. It’s actually kind of a disturbing story, so I won’t link it, but she describes looking her first boyfriend up and finding out he had died. Shouldn’t have been surprising for a 75 year old, but I stopped the video, thinking- maybe I should do the same. So I did. And I found his obituary. He frickin died. I was so shocked that at first I thought, it must be someone else with the same first and last name. The same thing happened to me that happened to the woman in the NDE video. 

I sat there with my mouth gaping open in shock. It was definitely him. I realized he hadn’t been on social media for a while. He would have said something when I got engaged and married.  

As of right now now, I’m not going to link his obituary because even though he’s gone, I still want to protect his privacy. And even though the obituary itself doesn’t mention his son, there’s one comment that says the name of his minor son.  I would rather keep his son’s personal information private as well. My first love was born in August of 1978 and died this past February of 2025 on his own “half birthday”. He was exactly 46 years and six months. 

What bothers me greatly is that not only does his obituary not mention the name of his son, but it doesn’t mention literally anything about him except his dates of birth and death, the city he lived in, and a recent picture. It doesn’t say what happened or who he left behind. Obituaries get very elaborate, and absolutely nothing was mentioned about this man, who was a computer genius, a businessman, a father, brother and uncle. And a son, if his parents are still alive which I have no idea of. He had three siblings. They were not mentioned with (spouses in parentheses) like is usually done. Did he have nieces and nephews? Probably. In fact I did ask him once if he had nieces and nephews and he rattled off their names and who they belonged to, but I do not remember how many. I also know that he had a stepson that he never stopped visiting after he divorced his mother. No mention of that or of anything. It doesn’t seem fair. My 94 year old aunt Fran’s obituary just went on and on, with her work history, her love of cigarettes and coffee etc. 

my first boyfriend did tell me once that he took Ritalin for many years as a kid and as a result, was living with a permanent heart condition. I wonder if this was his cause of death. It also could have been an accident or murder or suicide or something else entirely. I wonder, if he did die from the heart condition which was a result of long term Ritalin use as a child, is that why his family didn’t write anything, and that’s why the obituary just seemed like it basically just said “bye”. I mostly wouldn’t believe that he had specifically requested no obituary in his “dying days”. He blogged and tweeted and was on social media regularly. His final posts were in January of this year, and he seemed to still be working. I just can’t imagine someone with that much of an online presence would specifically ask their family for no obituary. Did his parents possibly leave everything out because they feel guilty? Are his three siblings going through the same illness?  My speculations are wild today. 

As soon as I learned about this I crawled in bed next to Kevin and thought, I’m so glad I have him now- because if I’d stayed with my first boyfriend, I’d be a widow right now instead of a newlywed. In fact, it’s eerily weird how my engagement and marriage happened so quickly after he actually passed away. Have you ever heard of people who claim that they try and get pregnant for a long time and then their grandma dies and a couple months later, they’re pregnant?  It feels like that. (Heaven sent). It feels like my husband Kevin, who was always kind of ambivalent to the idea of engagement and marriage, all of a sudden wanted it just a few short days after my first boyfriend died and I didn’t know. It all feels Heaven sent. I would never tell Kevin that. He’s a skeptic. I don’t even believe it 100% myself, I just made the connection while looking at the calendar. 

Then I got my daily Kalimera (good morning in Greek) message from my mom, and I told her. She responded, “Who?”  

That was irritating. I’m an only child, and he was my first love. What do you mean who?  I’ve been flustered with her selective memory lately.   She asked what his last name was, and I just sent her the obituary (or lack thereof). She simply responded, “ RIP Now I remember him 😢”.   

It was because of his picture. He looked exactly the same, just older. 

I’m so glad to be home now, especially after my sleepless night. The last store we did was extremely dirty and run down. I spent most of the trip home in the passenger seat reading Kevin some of the Google reviews. They were hilarious, and we laughed our butts off.