David McElroy

I used to be arrogant enough to believe that my death one day would be front page news all over the world.

I imagined all the great things I would have done by the time I died — the political power I had won, the businesses I had built and the influence I had had — and I thought that many millions would mourn me. I even thought I’d make the history books.

I have a very different view today of my obituary. I haven’t yet had the great success of my fantasies — not yet — but a summary of my life would sound interesting and successful. I had a wonderful run in newspapers, starting from reporter and quickly rising to publisher. I got into politics by accident and had a couple of decades of financial success getting candidates elected to powerful positions. I’ve owned small companies. I’ve made money and lost it. The story would be colorful.

But the one thing I now realize is most important to this earthly life would be missing. If I died today — which I certainly don’t expect anytime soon — a brutally honest obituary might say, “A lot of people liked him. A number of people will miss him. But he died without anybody who loved him. He died alone, with no family.”

And that feels like failure.

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Something about today’s date felt oddly familiar to me this evening. It seemed as though it used to be important. Who did I associate it with?

And then it hit me. It was her birthday.

It’s really hard to explain my relationship with her. I’ve written about it before, so I’m not going to rehash it. But her birthday has me thinking about that again. And about other relationships. And about love itself.

Why are my memories of love so mixed? I’ve experienced some of my greatest joys in love, but my deepest agonies and hurts have also come from love and its aftermath. I need love, but the fear of being hurt again is so awful that it’s devastating.

The woman whose birthday is today is happily married and we haven’t spoken for a very long time. She eventually realized that I would never love her. She wasn’t willing to be my second choice. And she was wise enough to walk away instead of remaining my “back-up plan.”

Why is it that one person usually loves more than the other? And why do those relationships hurt the worst?

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Some children are magnetic to other kids. They fit well in groups, because they’re so much like the others. Everybody loves them.

I was not that child.

My friends tended to be the brainy nerds and unique outcasts of the neighborhood. If everybody was playing and being social, my interests just weren’t like most people’s. I didn’t understand them, because they seemed so stupid and immature to me, which probably would have seemed strange coming from this tiny boy.

The other kids wanted me around when things needed to get done. When something needed to be built and nobody had a plan, I took charge. When students at school divided into teams for academic competition, kids wanted me to lead their team. If other kids were confused about what to do, they often turned to me.

But that didn’t mean they liked me.

I pretended I didn’t care whether people liked me, but I cared more than I wanted to admit, even to myself. I didn’t know how to be like them. It’s not that I wanted to change myself to be like them. I just wanted to find people more like me.

All these years later, I still feel the same way.

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