Competing with a memory

I am obsessed with an old man.  

He was born in 1949.  I was born in 1973.  The 24-year difference doesn't bother me at all.  I've been with someone who was 38 when I was only 21.  It didn't end well.  He treated me like an option.  I was also with a guy who was my age and he treated me like an option, too.  So, it's not the age... it's the guy!  I don't know this man personally, but I've read enough about him to know that he isn't like those guys.   When he falls in love, it's deep.   I want that, but at the same time, I'm not sure he is still capable of doing it.  I don't know if he can still fall in love.

He is currently single, he's never been married.  He's had girlfriends and one of them bore him a child - a daughter.  Another one only stayed with him for a year and a few months - then she died of cancer.  Of the two, the second one owned him - body and soul.  I think she still does even though she's been dead for many years now.  

How can you compete with that?  I mean, this man doesn't know me - he's quite well-known - but, you never know.  Paths cross, and we might just meet.  We might fall in love.  Third times the charm, they say.  However, in his case, I think any one will play second fiddle to a dead woman.  It feels like he has given her his entire being.  He left nothing - when he buried her, she took everything of him with her.  It's a very romantic idea, and endearing to a point.  How many guys now will do such a thing?  Fall in love with someone so completely that he empties himself?  Answer is ZERO!  

I am so heartbroken.  You cannot compete with a memory.  Gosh!  It's over long before it even starts!  Guess, I will never ever fall in love.  He's turning 70 soon, and I think what he's doing now is just living out his days until he, too, breathes his last breath.  I think he believes in the afterlife and he thinks that, soon, he and his dead girl will be together, for good, this time.   

I feel sad for him.  I mean, I've seen pictures of him before her.  Before dying and death got to him.  He did lose his mother before meeting her and you can see that grief has taken its toll on his face.  He used to have a vibrant, fiery persona.  Someone who oozed sex appeal.  Someone who had the energy of a thousand suns.  His charm and charisma were unlike any other.   He was handsome and brilliant and bright. 

Then, something happened between that time and the time that he met, and lost someone who, in his own words, was the love of his life.  You can clearly see deep lines made by sadness and tears.  The joy that once was there is gone.  Not even a memory of it can be seen.  I think she took it all away with her.

I don't think it's right for him to continuously yearn for her, or even swaddle himself in her memory, but he is a different man - someone who loves deep.  A rarity.  You can't blame him for loving someone.  So, I don't, but that means I can never have a place in his heart.   I hope he lives a happy life, nonetheless.  

I think I'm going to write songs about this now.  Maybe, it will make me feel better.  I hope our paths NEVER cross.  

 Who is he? 

He is Steve Perry.