Alison Smith was so many firsts for me. She was my first dance, my first crush, and one of my very first friends. She would have been my first date at the sixth grade dance too, but I chickened out. If I was Kevin Arnold, then she was my Winnie Cooper, and those were indeed the wonder years.

I’ll never forget that week at the Edgartown School. The first junior high dance was on Friday night. I asked Alison to go, and she said yes. Shock waves bolted through our class, as dating was unheard of. Our classmates were hounding us, and by midweek the pressure became unbearable.

We sat on a bench at recess and discussed it. “This is getting intense,” I said. “I know!” she replied. “Maybe we should just meet at the dance,” I suggested. “Yeah, that’s probably best,” she said. I thought I had caused a stir before, but little can compare to junior high heartbreak. Even Mr. Smith himself (Alison’s dad, who is a teacher at the school), stopped me in the hall and said, “Stevie, what happened? I thought you guys were going to the dance together?”

I had no clue what was going on. We attended the dance with our respective groups, Alison with her girlfriends and me with my guy friends. A twinge of awkwardness still remained until I walked over, took her by the hand and we danced the night away.

Alison and I had reconnected recently, and we were planning to get together when she was here this summer to catch up. We were going to talk about old times, for sure, and I would have shared the Friday night dance story with her, although I’m not quite sure how much of it she would have remembered.

We were both excited about sharing our more recent stories of where life had led us, and where we were heading now. Like me, Alison had the urge to spread her wings beyond the Vineyard Sound.

At her funeral last month I was amazed to see so many of her friends from so many different parts of her life. They came from Philadelphia, New York, Boston, everywhere that she had lived. All these friends traveled here to say goodbye.

They say money might make you wealthy, but friends make you rich, and if that is true, then Alison was one of the richest people I knew.

She was indeed a special person, and no matter what her circumstances were, she always stayed positive about life. Most of us struggle at times to stay positive, but it takes a certain kind of individual to always give you their very best. The last time I saw Alison was about a year ago at the Wharf Pub in Edgartown. She still had that certain quality, a vibrant energy that was contagious, and a smile that lit up the room. She gave me a big hug and we chatted briefly. We remarked several times about how good it was to see one another. In anticipation of our meeting up this summer, she sent me a text message, which read: “I wud love to see you. Hope all is well and wonderful.”

Alison, all is indeed well and wonderful, just knowing that you are a part of my life forever.

Stephen Dunayer lives in Edgartown.