I've just seen a face,
I can't forget the time or place
Where we just met.
He's just the boy for me
And I want all the world to see
We've met.
Had it been another day
I might have looked the other way
And I'd have never been aware.
But as it is I'll dream of him
Tonight

"If you're looking for the way out this isn't it."

They are hardly the sort of words that are destined to change a persons life and yet somehow those ten words did just that.

I don't know what it was that possessed me to talk to Craig Dean that morning. Sure I knew who he was, standing there in that hideous canary yellow jacket and looking for all the world like the saddest person I had ever seen. Everyone knew who the Dean's were, especially after what Jake had done to Mrs Valentine not so long before, and I'd seen Craig around the school the previous year but I'd never had anything to do with him, I'd never wanted to. Not until that morning.

There was something about him that day. A look in his eyes, maybe even a fear, that made me want to reach him.

He looked the way I felt, like someone who didn't belong, maybe I thought that we could not belong together and somehow work out a way to make us both fit.

"Do I know you?"

His first words to me, funny the things you remember, even after so long. I didn't expect him to know me but I was sure he must have heard of my family. Just like the Dean's everyone had heard of the McQueen's, my family were never known for their subtlety.

"No idea."

I watched him as I put my earphones back in. Those deep chocolate eyes were so sad and they seemed to speak directly to me, without the need for words. I didn't know that day that we would so soon learn how to communicate our deepest feelings to each other in that very same way.

A part of me wanted to reach out and hold him. To comfort him and tell him that everything would be OK. But how could I? How could I pull that boy into my arms when we had never met until that very moment, and what was it about him that made me want to do that so badly?

I don't know if I had been instantly attracted to Craig that day, I was still too busy trying to deny what I was to be able to admit what I was feeling, or if it was just that my heart had seen a kindred soul that I knew I could save, that could save me.

And that was the less than salubrious start to a friendship that would change my life, a love that would capture me and captivate me and would never leave me for the rest of my days.

So what makes me recall this first meeting of my love so many years ago? Why do I choose to remember the first words of two young boys who would become men together?

Because today is the day that I finally have to say goodbye to him.

The brightness has finally gone from his beautiful chocolate brown eyes, the dark shine of his hair has long since faded into grey and ultimately the breath from his body left his lungs and he was no more.

When I was 17 I met Craig Dean and I fell in love.

He was the only man I ever truly loved heart and soul.

When I was 84 I said goodbye to the love of my life, my soulmate and my partner through many wonderful years.

And soon I'll be ready to join him and nothing will ever part us again.

Oh, falling, yes I am falling,
And he keeps calling
Me back again.