Christening

D's dad made me cry. It was a completely leftfield occurrence.
He hadn't recognised me, but when he did, he was really taken aback: I haven't seen him for maybe twenty years. He kept saying, 'I can't believe it. Now I recognise you, you haven't changed a bit. You look exactly the same. You look really beautiful. You've really shocked me.'
He told me all about him and D's mum splitting up-some of which i knew but i pretended I didn't. Then he started talking about D's wife-most of which i knew but i pretended i didn't. He kept shaking his head and saying that he couldn't believe it was me.
He was shaking his head and looking at me, and then shaking his head again. My eyes filled up with tears. I was sure he was either going to say something about D's accident or he was going to say that he wished we had been able to stay together. But he just looked at me and said, 'You know what I'm going to say, don't you.'
Of course this induced a more substantial flow of salt water (although i was crying discreetly, not wanting to ruin anyone elses party). He apologised for making me cry, 'But you were such a big part of our lives.' And I didn't know that at the time, it was just me and D as far as I was concerned. It wasn't just the unexpected sadness of having to think about things that happened all that time ago. It was also that he reminded me of what it was about D that I had loved. It was that ability to communicate a massive ammount without saying a great deal. He obviously got that from his dad.