Sometimes he slips into my thoughts...

I was 24 when Casey stopped me rather abruptly while shopping in a Japanese mall in Singapore. He was 31, blond, blue-eyed, my height, a firm handshake, enjoyed the outdoors and had a very amiable Oregonian accent. He said hi and wanted my number. I was flattered but could not understand the attraction he had for me. It was also kind of romantic in a way - infantile on my part but it makes me blush every single time I recall the incident. Fond memories they were.

He told me rather passingly later that someone told him that he would find his soul-mate from a previous life and that he needed to break the cycle of loosing that person over and over again. I had always brushed that sort of idea as a bit hippie for my palette but I am beginning to understand the words that was not said later in life. This person had also told him that he would know who it is from the moment that he'd sat his eyes on him/her - the sex being irrelevant.

I have to say that Casey was one of the most gentle person I've ever met. He had a big heart too - too big even for me at that age. He came at a time when I was experiencing loss - the reason why things could not have worked out for us. I could not see beyond the moment especially when everything was crashing down at the same time. What I knew of him could not sustain my fascination over his love and its ideals for us. I only saw despair.

He had tried his best to share his life with me. The various local paper cut-outs of his swim team, him shovelling snow in winter, the place that he was building and the log-cabins he would share with me when we'd go skiing, family pictures and that of work. I always remember the countless anecdotes written over brochures etc. of his thoughts at that time, scribbled in tiny script. He also saw me at my most vulnerable but was still willing to embrace what was to be. He was truly a genuine person that would envelope you whole with so much warmth from within that you can feel safe in his hands - very rare indeed.

So these days I reminisce and wonder what has become of my Casey. I still have the graduation card he sent me and the 2 Spokane Finisher T-shirt he left behind. I wear them still as a tribute to the memory of Love's Labour's Lost. I draw strength at times from the notion that he too knew what loss meant and had shared that knowledge with me whenever he could from far far away. I had found solace then and hope that he too have found someone that will do the same for him as he had done for me. I have never forgotten.