Dear David,
Remember when I took this photograph? It was spontaneous, our first portrait together, October 4, 2004. You were so amazed by this picture:
“I can’t believe that’s me, Gail! You took 10 years off me!”
You were wearing your favourite shirt: a black linen Cuban number, which — come to think of it — was so out of place in your aviation-themed wardrobe.
You said until you’d met me, you’d thought of yourself as an old man. I remember when you said it; it saddened me that you perceived yourself this way. Because I just thought you needed some adventure in your life, and a co-pilot who’d put her hand on your knee now and again. You agreed wholeheartedly, as I recall.
When you took me on our first outing — the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour — and I pinched your bum in the darkness, you knew it was a done deal, right? I think you even yelped, and wore a huge perma-grin on your face despite the fact we were in the murky depths of a coal mine and the tour guide was narrating a grim story about child labour. Nobody understood why you were smiling.
I think that weekend caught both of us off-guard. In a good way.




