He was graceful on his feet, a runner, a tennis player. He loved to sing Linda Ronstadt songs in a funny falsetto — “I’ve been cheated. Been mistreated. When will I be loved?” He was funny and he was smart. The map of Ireland was on his face.

He was the boyfriend I broke up with two years out of college. The one-sentence reason was that I wanted children and he didn’t. But there was a longer story, the sort of painful lesson you learn in early adulthood, that love is not enough.

When I heard Monday that Gerry passed away, I felt, after the initial shock and sadness, a sort of reflective remorse. We’d only communicated via Christmas cards for decades; could I have been a better friend?

So I pulled out my old journals and read about those days. I laughed and I cried. I learned some things about Gerry that I had forgotten, and I realized that I had worried about him for years. I had done all I could. He was one of those people who never really found himself, a lover of life with skin too thin for this world. I wish him eternal peace.