FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

There was a small, dusty notebook under my grandfather's bed. I found it while I was sweeping away dust surrounding his bed. Decided to check underneath, found more dust and cobwebs. But hiding in plain sight was a thick notebook, which was full of things coming out of the pages: bookmarks, Polaroid photos and handwritten notes. Looked like a scrapbook at first glance.

One month earlier, John Raymond Ferris passed away after a lengthy illness. Though we remained in mourning, the family and I gathered at his home. His essence continued to appear in every room. The perfect amount of natural light and warmth with a lingering and refreshing scent of pine. The air was soft and pleasing. He and his late wife lived in a modest one-story house in the countryside. Not necessarily off the grid, but John lived in a place where it was difficult to find. He liked it that way.

Mom broke her foot recently, so she had trouble driving and walking. She asked me to clean up her father's house in her place, preserve any valuables I found and throw away any trash left around. Even until the very end, John was tidy. When he knew he was going to be bedridden due to his condition, John tossed his cane aside and used the vacuum cleaner as his walker and cleaned the house. He morbidly joked with us about how he was nearing his "check-out time" and wanted to "give the maids cleaning up after [him] less work to do." A former hotelier, John never fully retired. Against his better judgment, he ran a small bed-and-breakfast with his wife for the remaining twenty years of his life. When he knew about his terminal condition, John sold the business to mom and we had taken care of it ever since. He still dropped by unannounced to lecture us about cleaning.

I sat at the foot of John's bed and opened the notebook. To my surprise, there was a bright pink post-it note with the words "OPEN ME."

It was his personal diary and he wanted one of us to read it. It started with a handwritten entry dated over 60 years ago.

The first line was a true eye-opener: "I think I'm in love with another boy."

At no point did any member of our family consider or mention that my grandfather was gay or bisexual. He was exuberant, goofy and well-dressed, sure, but he loved his wife Jeannie. He absolutely adored her and worshiped the ground she walked on. She never mentioned anything to us. This was definitely a surprise. So the first entry of his diary was wrestling with his potential attraction to another man: a stoat named Jameson Downey.

Before he got into the hospitality business, John served in the military. He had three tours of duty overseas during wartime before he was honorably discharged. This was a painful time for him because the memories he had were permanently etched into his mind and essentially scarred him. My mom told me that he used to tell her some stories about the "less traumatizing things" when she was a young kit, and he would immediately clam up when she asked him to elaborate on the darker elements. He did reveal to her that he witnessed some of his comrades die and he was in a number of heart-stopping, perilous missions on the front lines. And after being honorably discharged from service as a field medic, John swore that he'd never revisit that part of his life.

"I started a diary because I don't know who to write or talk to other than myself," he wrote. "And I don't understand why I'm feeling this way."

John described a reconnaissance mission in which he and a band of soldiers traveled by vehicle to assess enemy advancements close to base. Intel from top brass indicated the enemy was preparing for a night ambush on their base. They traveled in an armored Jeep in full gear and weapons in tow. John sat in the back. Jameson, a second lieutenant, rode shotgun.

"My head was like a swivel that day, the day I met him," John wrote. "I was thinking, 'This is probably the day I'm going to die. This is it.'" He had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was amiss. It was quiet in the jungle. And it was more likely than not the enemy was lying in wait.

"The guys in the Jeep except for Jameson and I were joking around," John wrote. "They said, 'Lighten up' because they were confident they pushed the enemy back at least eight clicks from their position. There had been a gunfight the week prior and allied forces were able to secure a victory, which kept the enemy at a safe distance for the time being. Regardless, John knew the enemy had artillery, and there was confusion among the generals as to whether or not forces were able to successfully disable the enemy artillery positions close by. They hadn't heard from the soldiers who were the closest to those positions to make any finite assessments; they were likely killed in action. There was another unit dispatched to track their last known positions.

Then John ominously wrote, "There was an eerie silence among us before everything went black."

Their Jeep was hit with a mortal strike. The last thing John saw before he lost consciousness was a white flash with something heavy and hard hitting the vehicle. When he opened his eyes, John felt a lot of pain and discomfort. His vision was blurry. Couldn't keep his eyes open. He lost consciousness again. The next he woke, John felt someone dragging him away on the ground. Was it the enemy? John wasn't sure. All he knew was that he was alive but barely. The adrenaline kicked in eventually and he wanted to check on the others, but his body was heavy. He could barely move. Whoever was dragging him around was dragging a lead weight that was once a rabbit.

"When I regained consciousness a third time, I remember being in pain, but I could at least sit upright. I was on the ground, surrounded by jungle in some unknown location. I recognized the sound of Jameson's voice. He radioed to command and said, 'Only the medic and I survived. Officers Kendrick and Levy are KIA. I secured their dog tags.'

"And I faintly said to Jameson something along the lines of, 'And here I was supposed to save you but you saved me. What's that all about?' Didn't mean to sass, but I was disoriented. Didn't even know if I had all my limbs intact. Didn't know shit from Shinola."

Jameson told him, "I want you to hear in there, buddy, alright? You're all I got right now. Sit there and hang tight."

"Am I okay?" John asked.

"You look a little banged up but compared to the rest of our unit, you should consider yourself lucky. The mortar hit the left side of the Jeep and not the right where we were. If the mortar hit us directly overhead, we would've all been wiped out. No question."

All John could think about was thanking God, his guardian angels and all the heavenly stars above for the mortar strike barely missing him. He was also enormously grateful for Jameson and his quick-thinking that day. John mustered the fleeting strength he had to line his back up against a nearby tree and sit upright. Jameson was crouched low. The left side of his face was covered in blood. John wasn't sure if that was the stoat's blood or the driver's. His first instinct was to drag himself closer to Jameson and assess the wound, but his vision remained blurry.

Jameson tersely whispered to him, "I told you to sit there and hang tight. Do you copy?"

"I want to help you."

"You can help by piping down until rescue arrives."

John was uncomfortable with being dependent on someone else, even if that someone else saved his life and owed them an enormous debt of gratitude. John retrieved from his pocket a gauze and bandages. His medic kit was left behind in the Jeep; it was likely blown to pieces. He dragged himself with bandages in paw and approached Jameson. Jameson, who was busy observing his surroundings in silence as he laid low in the tall grass, was startled by John. Jameson reached for John's paw as John was about to inspect the side of his face and latched on.

"You're stubborn, aren't you?" Jameson muttered.

"I am."

John described Jameson holding onto his arm in a tender way, not firm. "I've had people grab onto me before," he wrote. "Fellas got drunk at the bar, looking for a poor sap like me at the counter to push around and deck while they're out of their gourd. They called me a 'sissy boy' and try to get a piece of me, but I fought back. They'd try to grab me, but I let 'em know that was a big mistake. I know what aggression felt like. But Jameson held onto my arm softly and didn't let go. And despite trying to act like Mr. Cool on the battlefield, he was shaking. I could feel him shaking. We were scared, but at least we were scared together."

They could hear footsteps surrounding them like people were approaching cautiously. Jameson put a finger up to his lips and went_shhhhhh_. Either the enemy was looking for them or rescue was. It wasn't clear. Jameson waited to hear a signal that indicated a friendly was approaching their position. When that signal never came, they laid quietly on the ground. The footsteps eventually moved away from their hiding spot. Jameson carefully looked up from the tall grass and saw the coast was clear. They sighed in relief.

"When they adrenaline finally died down between us, we started talking. Nothing serious. Just small talk. We couldn't do anything else," John wrote. They couldn't process what happened on the road. It was still too fresh and painful. "I didn't see the others after the strike, but he did." John was referring to Jameson, who struggled to express any sort of emotion except for a cold, blank stare into the distant horizon.

They swapped stories about each other. John told Jameson that he was born and raised on a farm in the Midwest. His father was a ranch hand and his mother was the farmer's daughter. Suffice to say the farmer wasn't pleased to find out his only daughter was pregnant and the father was somehow he once trusted enough to call him "son." But when John was born, the farmer wasn't angry. Just a little bitter. The farmer made John's father work pay off the "debt of inconvenience" for helping bring John into the world and out of wedlock. His mother would eventually give birth to two more kits: a boy and a girl. When the kids were old enough, they started working on the farm. But by then, the farmer warmed up to John's father and was beaming with pride over having grandchildren. The problem was that the kits were all competing for attention. That's when John began to form what he described was a "flamboyant streak." He cracked jokes, played pranks and was considered the class clown once he was enrolled in elementary. That's when the other kids called him "sissy boy." He was saccharine sweet, loved to have a conversation, and tried his darn hardest to make as many friends as he possibly could. Didn't exactly fit the traditional mold for masculinity.

He watched his brother Alvin grow like a weed and become a rancher. He looked all tough in his cowboy hat, well-worn plaid shirt and dusty jeans with some gnarly chin fuzz and a dirty scut. He was a handsomely rugged rabbit who exuded toughness. And John grew up a little more pudgy than that. He didn't describe himself as overweight, just "comfortably plump." He saw that Alvin worked closely with his dad and spent considerably more time with him than he did with John. John felt the pressure to be tough. After being bullied in high school and accosted at the local bar, John decided on a whim to join the military and serve his country. He joined around the time he heard rumblings about a draft. He wanted to go willingly as opposed to being forced into it and trying to resist like his sister Emilia wanted him to. She was the first of his family to move into the city. She was hired for a job as a receptionist for a company that designed and constructed billboards for clients. She used her connections at work to secure a spot for him as a laborer, but he turned down the opportunity. He was set on becoming a soldier and was knee deep in denial that he was throwing his whole life on the line for dad's approval.

Jameson's story was somewhat darker. He was orphaned at a young age after his mother died from cirrhosis of the liver as a result of alcoholism. Dad was never around. He was forced to drop out of school and worked odd jobs to survive on the street. For a time, he lived with a family who raised him as their own. But once he was old enough to get into mischief, they kicked him out of the house. At that point, the only way to find housing and eat three meals a day was to join the military. After joining, Jameson was put through rigorous boot camp and training to which he excelled at. To his surprise, Jameson fell into line quickly. He also showed a strong affinity for the M16 rifle and showed impressive results during firearms training. This led him to receiving a number of promotions quickly. He went from being a rebellious stoat on the streets to a reliable soldier on the field who garnered respect among the top command. But nothing could actually prepare him for the horrors of war.

"He said to me out of the blue, 'Before the attack, I was still a child wanting to play soldier. I didn't know what being a soldier really meant until then,' he said. 'You watch your soldiers and friends die. If I manage to survive this and somehow make it home without winding up in a flag-draped casket, I don't know if I'll ever feel what normal felt like before I got here.' All I wanted to do is tell him that everything was going to be okay when I didn't know for sure that it would be. I wanted to comfort him."

Before the sun set, John made use of the remaining daylight to expect Jameson. It appeared the stoat was hit with a shrapnel wound to the face, just under his left ear. When the shock subsided for Jameson, the pain began to settle in. John treated his wound to the best of his ability. John continued dealing with dizziness and loud tinnitus from the strike. He was eventually able to move all limbs fully, but badly required stitches up and down his left side. John knew he could easily bleed out if rescue didn't arrive soon, but he was more preoccupied with Jameson and his still-shaking paw. He looked into the stoat's sullen, blue eyes and saw his innocence quickly slipping away.

Rescue eventually arrived later under the cover of darkness. Miraculously, both John and Jameson were managed to walk. They knew they were lucky.

They were mercifully taken off the board for further military operations and were given time to recover under medical observation. John suffered a concussion, a few broken ribs and second-degree burns throughout his body. Jameson had a deep shrapnel wound on the side of his face, which took a few hours to extract in surgery and stitch up. He also suffered nerve damage in his left arm, which left him with tremors. He also dealt with some internal bleeding, which necessitated a blood transfusion immediately upon arriving at base. The injuries they endured were nothing compared to the others, so they did their best to not complain around anyone.

They laid side-by-side in the medical tent, covered up in bandages, and reeling from their internal and external scars. They were separated by privacy curtain from the other wounded soldiers. Jameson asked for whisky as a way to "kill the thoughts [he] was having." John, who wasn't much of a drinker, decided to give some a try. A soldier ran over from unit supply to fetch a bottle. After they started drinking, they got to know each other better.

"I don't remember exactly what we talked about because the whisky was flowing through me," John wrote. "But we kept pausing and just looking into each other's eyes. I think it was like we were connected. There was an unspeakable bond between us."

They managed to finish the bottle together. For a short while, there was relative calm. There were moments when they sat upright in bed, quietly exchanged glances, and tried to rest their eyes but couldn't. Rinse and repeat a few times. He hunched his shoulders and looked at John with a smile. Then he reached out with his paw. For some inexplicable reason, John turned red. In his diary, he recalled in a later entry how he feel at that exact moment. "He wanted me to hold his paw," he wrote. "I was honored, delighted and confused. Why was my heart beating so fast? Why did I want to -- oh, what is wrong with me?"

After John held onto Jameson's hand, Jameson sat up, moved his body like he was about get out of bed. John rose up instinctively. He felt like he was gravitating toward Jameson and there was nothing that could possibly tell him that he couldn't. Then they kissed on the lips. It was the perfect kiss at the right moment. John was enamored by Jameson's passionate kiss and inviting tongue. John closed his lips a little to savor a tighter kiss. As soon as they thought about sex, their bodies started to ache. Not tonight. But soon.

"It was better than anything in the world," John wrote. "That kiss gave me a one-way ticket out of sadness and into the depths of my bleeding heart -- if only for a few wonderful minutes."

John told the story of how he fell in love with Jameson for several entries in his diary. It was equal parts riveting and revelatory. I always knew my grandfather was a sassy rabbit, but I had no idea he had a relationship with another man. Did my mom know? She had to have known, but she never told me.

Inside his diary were a series of photos taken with Jameson and John. Not sure if the photos were taken when they were overseas or back home. There were photos of him standing shirtless next to Jameson over by a lake with their dog tags on. John had some muscle on him. I'd never seen him that fit! The stoat looked like a movie star with that faraway look in his eyes and his handsomely rugged exterior. They looked like an adorable pair. I smirked when I recalled a time when John used to tell me about how much he loved skinny dipping, swinging from a branch, and jumping into the lake naked. I imagined him swimming in the lake with Jameson and caressing each other in the water.

John described getting a photo taken of Jameson and John together. John wore a white uniform with his medals. Jameson wore black with his own. John jokingly described the photo as a "marriage photo between bride and groom." He had the photo developed, shrunken down to fit inside a locket. One sunny afternoon, he gifted Jameson the locket with a cut daisy from the lake inside. For the first time in their relationship, Jameson turned red. At first, he didn't know whether to accept or reject the locket. Then John volunteered to place the locket around his neck. For Jameson, the locket was a timeless treasure and John was owed a passionate kiss underneath a tall, shady tree in the woods. The two found a spot in the woods to kiss, get undressed and immerse themselves in each other's bodies, intertwined by fate.

"We escaped from the cruel world and found a few places to fool around," John wrote. "I never knew what love truly was until I found him. Was it right? Was it wrong? I didn't give a shit either way. Didn't feel foolish to either of us, but the rest of society felt otherwise."

And that was the beginning of the end. I had to keep reading.

In one entry, John described a rumor he heard about a soldier making a pass at another soldier on another base. The soldier receiving the pass reportedly got into an altercation and shot the other soldier dead. A report was later filed to top command that the soldier making the pass engaged in "aggravated assault" and the other soldier was justified in his actions, citing self-defense. There was no court martial or further disciplinary action. John and Jameson were keenly aware that homophobia was deeply and systemically ingrained in the military institution. Everything they did with each other had to be a secret. No public displays of affection. They couldn't do anything to arouse suspicion that they were an item. John felt obligated to act more conservatively and speak in a deeper register. Jameson didn't have to make a whole lot of adjustments. And if anyone were to ask him about any potential relationship with John, Jameson was prepared to people that they were merely friends. Though he nodded along to the plan, John felt uncomfortable having his relationship being categorized as friendship; it was significantly more than that.

"I heard the words 'queer' and 'faggot' mentioned a lot by soldiers at our base," John wrote. Anyone who was suspected of being gay were pelted with apples and balances because they were considered 'fruit.' We heard of assaults taking place. Guys being dragged off their bunks and beat them to within an inch of their life. The chaplains railed against homosexuality, decrying it as an 'original sin' and a 'sick distraction.' We were outnumbered and outflanked.

"But did that deter us? Hell no. But we had to be discreet."

Both men would return to the field albeit in separate units. Both had seen more chaos and bloodshed that was seared into their memories. What they saw was difficult for John to articulate in his own diary. "I don't need to write down what I saw on my missions because I will always remember," he somberly wrote. "The best I can do is create more good memories with Jameson and balance the scales, so to speak."

When they were ultimately discharged from service and returned to mainland, John and Jameson reunited a couple of times. As civilians, they flew on planes to see each other. When Jameson flew over to see John, they spent their nights together in seedy motel rooms where nobody asked questions. John, who hated lying, told his family that he was visiting the boys he met overseas for a couple of drinks and laughs. Jameson cobbled enough money he earned from service to rent an apartment above an appliance store. When John traveled to Jameson, they spent time together in Jameson's apartment, watching television in the dark as anti-war protesters rallied outside and marched down the street. A part of them wanted to join the resistance out of anger for what they felt they were needlessly exposed to. Yet by joining the anti-war movement, they felt like their contributions and sacrifices made would be further drowned out by noise -- as righteous as that noise may be. They also didn't want to feel that their pain and trauma was for naught.

But John started to change in the way he thought about war.

"Protesters were marching and calling for peace," John wrote. "That's all I really wanted in life was peace. And Jameson felt that war was a necessary means to achieve peace. Problem with that was we were fighting a war in a country far, far away from our own. What were we really fighting for? Was that truly in our national interest? I begged to differ."

As the months passed, John grew a beard, let his headfur run down to his shoulders, and lost any and all desire to look like the prototypical, loyal soldier. When he returned home, John joined his sister Emilia in the city to protest and organize. Television crews and cameramen extensively documented the protests, which included but certainly not limited to marches, burning draft cards on the street, singing anti-war anthems and dancing to the beat of a revolution. While he was in the crowd, carrying his sign, and shouting anti-war slogans until his voice went coarse, John noticed something that caught his eye.

"I'm walking down the street with Emilia and I saw two men beside us, holding hands. I remember thinking, 'Oh no. You can't do that here,' but they didn't care," John wrote. "They were carefree, open and proud. How come they were braver than Jameson and I? We were veterans. These were two men who were clearly in love and they were gloriously unchained. Why couldn't we do that?

I called up Jameson and said that we should maybe try to live our lives in the light and not in the shadows. I truly thought we were headed in a direction that we could do that. I told them that all we learned from war is to follow orders but not our hearts, stick with the status quo but not think differently. This would be the first time he would be irate with me. He said he didn't care for all that 'hippie bullshit,' and expressed anger that I was going astray from our pact. Don't protest. Don't get involved. Wait til everything blows over and figure it out later. But for how long? What was the point in waiting? Could I afford to wait the rest of my life for change to catch up to us or should I step up for change now so we could live the rest of our days no longer feeling like we had to hide away or change ourselves? He was not interested in the dialogue and hung up before I could tell him that I loved him.

My parents inherited the farm they helped maintain. Alvin helped put the farming business in the black by opening a farm supply store on the property, selling supplies and produce to farmers in the surrounding area. Despite John getting into the military to man up and get his father to recognize him, they didn't have much of a relationship. They talked on the phone occasionally out of transactional, moral obligation. John figured his relationship with his father was strained because his father knew he was "different" than the rest of his flock and that he didn't come back to the farm after discharge. His theory was plausible since his father didn't talk much to Emilia either. She moved to the city. Out of sight and out of mind. They still talked to mom plenty.

John's conversations and meetups with Jameson were few and far between. As time went on, they had fewer intimate moments. Their meetups were essentially downgraded to having drinks at the bar or the occasional platonic fishing trip. Gone were the days of skinny dipping, riding through the mountains on Jameson's Yamaha DT-1 motorcycle where they shared a seat, sunbathing at a secluded beach, and sleeping together naked in the backseat of John's pickup truck while staring at the open sky and stars above. Their relationship remained carefully clandestine but virtually nonexistent.

"Then one day, Jameson told me out of the blue that he met a girl named Sally."

John was crushed. But then again, he knew deep down their relationship had an expiration date. A long-distance gay relationship in the late 1960s was practically unheard of and logistically unsustainable. Still, though, the two were a couple for two years by that point. It had to have meant something more than a fling.

"Jameson looked me right in the eyes and said, 'It was definitely not a fling. I loved every second, every minute and every hour with you. I loved all of it,'" John wrote. "He told me the bond that brought us together was also a bond they kept us apart. It was a paradox. We were two lost souls that crossed paths on happenstance. But after our paths crossed, we both recognized there were many hurdles for us to overcome. It wasn't just that society wasn't ready for us. It's that we weren't ready to be together forever, and forever is an awfully long time. And when I broached the subject about Sally and asked him if he was going steady with her because he felt he had to, Jameson didn't answer with words. He answered with tears welling in his eyes. This was painful for him. So I decided to do the merciful thing and let him go."

A despondent John became reclusive. For a time, he lived with Emilia in the city. Tired of him feeling sorry for himself and not pulling his weight with the rent, Emilia forced him to apply for work. By then, the war was over. There was a period of peace and prosperity, but he sought neither. He stumbled upon a job as a front desk agent at a swanky hotel uptown. It was the perfect for job. He was allowed to be affable and accommodating while being responsible. His newfound responsibility motivated him to shave his overgrown fur and embrace the cherubic rabbit that he always knew he was.

After a year on the job, the hotel promoted John to manager. He was so passionate about his job as a front desk agent that it was hard for upper management to not notice. He constantly pitched them on improving workflow. He helped solve scheduling conflicts with management coverage by implementing a starter time clock system that could be audited more easily and internally without tampering. When staffers weren't available, John stepped in to negotiate with outside vendors and managed to secure lower rates that kept the daily overhead low. He willingness to take the reins made him a strong company asset.

He met his future wife Jeannie, also a rabbit, who eventually replaced him as front desk agent. He was assigned to train her.

"I have to say I didn't like her much at first because she kept finishing my sentences," John admitted. "No! Let me finish, Jeannie! But I came to realize later that she was finishing my sentences because she was exactly on my wavelength. Her charisma rivaled my own. If a maid called in sick, Jeannie would perform maid duty, put on the outfit, and work the duster with that cute tail of hers lifted in the air. She was straight out of central casting for the pin-up girls -- the kind of girls I'd see on posters I had beside my bunk bed back in the military days. And her brains matched the brawn. She had the audacity to outpace me like she was treating the hotel like her five-story home. She got to know every nook and cranny. Heck, she even helped out in the kitchen when we were understaffed because the workers unionized and went on strike. She was a real go-getter."

One day, John mustered the courage to buy her a bouquet of flowers as a token of his appreciation for her hard work. For some reason, Jeannie mistook the flowers as a romantic gesture. She placed the flowers on the front desk, told him, "Nice try, Romeo!" and proposed a dinner and a movie. John shrugged his shoulders and said, "Why not?"

John described Jeannie as a girl with a rebellious heart. What she lacked in size (she was a small girl), she made up for in grit. Her fur was fluffy and white as snow with a cotton candy pink nose and cherry-colored lipstick. Hazel eyes and dimpled cheeks. Her perfume smelled like roses and sandalwood. Lots of fruity notes. She was assertive, but stopped short of being bossy. When they were alone together, she showed off her crass humor. She was clearly attracted to him. He eventually leaned on her energy and liked to nibble a little by her ears when they watched movies in a darkened theater, which became a routine experience that took place once a week. He took her to his favorite diner around the corner of the theater and treated her to a strawberry shake, chili dog and fries. He liked watching her eat and go from daintily eating fries to absolutely downing the chili dog like a competitive eater.

"Never believed I could fall in love with anyone else. Then there was Jeannie."

Since Jeannie entered his life, his entries became more sporadic because, quite frankly, she kept him busy with marriage, kids and all the craziness in between. And by the time I got in the picture, John was simply known as "grandpa."

"My life is complicated, but it's wonderfully complicated," John said in one of his final entries. "Even in my days of happiness, bouncing my granddaughter Marci [me] on my lap while telling Brian [uncle] and Jennifer [mom] that retirement is for daydreamers and suckers, I sometimes wonder about Jameson. I wonder if he ever found happiness. I sometimes wrestle with the desire to just say hello to him one more time, and let him know I think of him. No, obviously, we can't roll back the clock and go back to what once was, but I want to let him know how appreciative I was of him to show me what love and tenderness was like -- and that love could be transcendent. I love Jeannie. But goddamn it. I love Jameson too!"

John's diary contained additional post-it notes with messages he clearly wrote with the intent for one of us to read them. Most of the notes were inside jokes and family references that made me smile and giggle. He also shared jokes about his sexuality. In one note, he wrote, "If Marci or Jen is reading this, please know that you could've totally asked me for advice on dating boys. I bet you regret not asking now. At least Jen found a good man. Marci I'm not so sure. Boys can be rude or crude often, but get them alone in a room and ask them to bare their soul. They'll open up -- well, eventually. Just trust me on that."

Then he turned his focus to Jeannie. "She knew," he wrote. "And she had the best reaction. She said, 'So what?' All she wanted to know was his phone number so she could either apologize for taking his man away or rub it in his face that he didn't know how good he had it until I left him, depending on how I felt about him on a given day.

"She's going to be furious that I'm late to the party. By the time I get up there, I know she'll tell me by dinner is in the fridge." Jeannie passed away two years before he did.

There was so much more in his diary that I could get into, but I spent a good two hours reading his inner-most thoughts, so carefully crafted in prose like he was writing a memoir. As a journalist, I appreciated his candor and revealing a part of himself that I never knew existed. I was shocked at first, sure, but the way he told his story was beautiful. Stunning. I hung on his every word. But I also knew that I had to finish cleaning the house and taking care of business.

But before I closed his diary, something fell out. Could it be? Oh my God. Yes it was!

Later that day, I returned to my apartment, went on the Internet to search for Jameson Downey at his last known location. No obituaries appeared in the search results. Great. It was possible he was still alive. Then I went on social media and performed a search on there. He was, indeed, still alive and even had a social media profile that was outdated. I clicked around and was able to find his home address. Next, I had to book a flight.

One month later, my plane landed in Jameson's hometown. I told my boyfriend that I was planning to see an old friend, though I wasn't friends with Jameson. Never contacted him. Never told him I was arriving. This was a covert operation that only I could do -- the only person who could possibly do it. John entrusted whoever read his diary with extensive knowledge about his relationship with Jameson. I had to complete the circle for him. It's what he would've wanted.

I drove to a house located on a beach. By the time I pulled up to the house, I could hear the sound of waves crashing in the distance and the murmur of water swishing around on the shore. It was a cute and colorful place. I knocked on the door, waited about a minute. I heard someone slowly approaching from inside. The door swung open. Standing in the doorway was an elderly but still sharp-looking stoat glaring at me while holding onto a cane.

"Can I help you, dear?" the stoat asked. He adjusted his eyeglasses and tilted his head as if he recognized me, but wasn't sure from where. But boy, I sure recognized him. That stud.

"I think I have something that belongs to you," I said. I handed him the locket.

He suddenly dropped his cane. His face began to shrivel up with an array of emotions, which poured out of him all at once. He took the locket and sniffled. "I swear to God," he said as he choked up, his voice quaking. "You sonofabitch." He opened the locket, turned his head slightly to the side to inspect the daisy still inside. He started to shake. He closed his eyes, put the locket up to his lips and kissed it.

Then Jameson slowly opened his eyes, pointed up to the sky and said, "He's up there now, isn't he?"

I nodded.

Jameson invited me into his humble abode for a cup of tea. I graciously accepted.

Once I wandered into his living room, I caught a glimpse of picture frame after picture frame of him with another man who wasn't John. It was clear as day they were a couple and grew old together. His husband, Peter, was a wolf architect he met in the late seventies after his short-lived marriage to Sally. They got married the moment that gay marriage was allowed in his state and threw a party to celebrate. Jameson said he wanted to said John an invite, but he didn't want to impose since so much time had passed since they last saw each other.

"We had different lives and different paths," Jameson said as we sat at his dining room table with tea. "But I'm glad to hear he found his footing and lived a long and wonderful life."

"He did."

"But I broke the boy's heart."

"Maybe you did, but he had some help picking up the pieces," I said, referring to grandma. "He was sad, sure, but he credits you for showing him what it was like to love. He eventually found it again."

"So he did find happiness, right?"

"He actually found that long before he met Jeannie. He found you."

We sat there quietly at the table, allowing our thoughts to thrive until we got lost in the hypnotic sound of waves calmly washing onto shore.