Full Circle: What Happens When You Re-Connect with the First Love of Your Life?

This is a story in search of an ending.

It began 55 years ago on a snowy winter afternoon on a small college campus in Michigan when I “broke up” with the co-ed I had dated for two years.

She was reserved, poised. I watched with a touch of remorse as she drove away in the falling snow. She was the kindest and most generous person I had known in life — and my first love.

Our lives quickly grew apart. She transferred to the university, became an exceptional elementary school teacher, married a thoughtful man with prodigious yet understated qualities, raised two children, and retired “up north” in her home state of Michigan.

I pursued a career in publishing, following advancement opportunities in newspapers in Michigan, Texas, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. — the last 19 years with the Washington Post Company after transitioning over time from the newsroom to the executive suite.

Forty-six years passed and we remained out of touch, except for maybe a whisper here or there of each other’s existence, and I continued to connect with a small group of hometown friends that included her older brother who lived in the Chicago area.

One of my avocations was writing a column every other week for a group of suburban newspapers in Washington, D.C., owned by the Washington Post Company. These were columns that occasionally…