I have a lot of ex-boyfriends.

In fact, I have so many ex-boyfriends, I wrote an entire book about them. There is an art to being an ex-girlfriend, and I have always prided myself on being a pretty darn good one. I am actually friends with most of my exes. One of them introduced me to my husband and was best man in our wedding. Another helped his mother make my wedding cake, and several others were in attendance at the ceremony. Many of my exes are e-mail correspondents; others I see during the holidays at various get-togethers. I can honestly say that I hold no grudges against any of my exes, and I feel I’ve always treated them well.

Except one.

My last long-term boyfriend before my husband (I’ll call him Jay) was a college student working his way through school when we dated. He wanted to be a high school math teacher and football coach. We were a bad match from the beginning, but for various reasons, we ended up staying together for almost two years. When it was finally over, we didn’t see much need to keep in touch. Although I heard of him through mutual friends, I didn’t speak to him or even see him for many years. To be honest, Jay hadn’t crossed my mind in a very long time.

Last night my sister told me he had cancer.

Today, I’ve thought of little else but Jay. Things I hadn’t thought of in years have been running through my mind all day. The way he used to order his McDonald’s cheeseburgers without pickles so he could be sure they’d make them fresh. The really stupid, inappropriate “gifts” he used to give me simply because he got them free from the hardware store he worked at. The night we were taking a walk in Florida and ran across an armadillo; Jay took its picture, and the animal got confused by the flash and ran toward Jay, who bolted in terror, leaving me laughing hysterically.

We all have friends who leave our lives for one reason or another. Sometimes they move away; sometimes you just lose touch because you grow apart. I don’t know about others, but I’ve always put those lost friends in a special place in my head. I pack them away and assume that they’re okay, that they’re happy and healthy and safe. It is a very odd feeling, one I have literally never experienced before, to know that someone who was once very close to you, perhaps closer than anyone else on the planet, is gravely ill. Although we have not spoken to each other in almost a decade, Jay and I were once rather crazy about one another. Strangely, I had forgotten all about that in the past ten years. It saddens me that it would take a tragedy for me to finally see the value of it.

For so many women today, being an ex-girlfriend means being bitter, angry, and tough. The women’s movement taught us that we don’t need men to feel good about ourselves, but a strange side effect seems to have been that we dismiss the whole relationship when one goes sour. Rather than admit there were parts of it that we liked (which might be construed as weakness), we toss out the whole thing. I didn’t do that with my other exes, but I did with Jay.

Although I wish it could have come about differently, I’m grateful that this has allowed me to see our relationship from a completely new perspective. Jay and I did have some fun together. He made me laugh. Most of the time, he made feel very good about myself. He was a hard-working, ambitious guy who didn’t always have a lot of time for romance. But we taught each other a lot, and I can now say that I’m glad we dated.

I hope he feels the same. And I hope he’s alright. For as my mother always said, “All relationships end except the last one.”