Recalling a bolt from the blue

I am convinced: Every lonely person needs at least one visit from the man with the blue drink. But before I tell you about this memorable man and his antidote for blue days, let me share why I’ve been thinking about him. A single and lovely girlfriend was recently lamenting that another year was drawing to a close and there was no special someone on her horizon. In searching for the words to comfort her, I was torn. I couldn’t sort out which felt worse: spending month after month going about our busy Los Angeles lives, with no soulful connection to a member of the opposite sex; or finally loving someone with all of your being in this isolating metropolis, only to lose him?

For my pretty friend, 2002 goes down as another empty collage of months in which no man made a lasting impression. On my end it was the opposite. What I had written off as impossible in this flaky town happened so fast and intensely that it still seems like as if it happened to someone else.

Early this year I fell madly in love, despite my stubborn belief that love in this millennium only leads to disillusion and pain. But the object of my affections proved a relentless and steady force who nicknamed me Jade (for my jadedness) and intuitively knew me, accepted me and cared about me.

With time I came around. I had to. If soul mates exist, this was the closest I’d ever come. But even when it’s that good, it does not mean it’s permanent. When my girlfriend verbalized her sadness, I had no choice but to reflect on my own. It still seems cruel, particularly in light of the heartache that preceded him, that someone like him landed on my path if he wasn’t meant to stay.

So I did what all girlfriends do. I called another girlfriend, one who has been there for me for 15 years and counting. It had been a long time since either one of us had invoked the blue drink man, but on this day when all I could focus on was my despair, Gina did what all good friends do. “Do you remember the man that gave us those blue drinks?” she asked softly. Oh, do I. He came into our lives a dozen years ago at a sidewalk cafe in Miami’s South Beach. I had just broken up with my first love, and I was sobbing so hard my ribs hurt. Gina had run out of words when he approached us.

“Enjoy your tears,” the man said. “That’s not funny,” Gina answered. “No, I mean it,” he said. “You are crying over a boyfriend, right? Enjoy it. Your tears are special. You are so young. Before you know it, you will forget him and love again.” “He is special,” I defended my love.

On that scorching, humid afternoon, I couldn’t fathom loving another. I informed the nosy stranger that my beloved was going to medical school far away, and we both knew we lacked the maturity to endure a long-distance relationship.

“Then the more reason to enjoy your tears,” he said. “It means you have loved someone worthy of it. Do you know how many people go through their lives never knowing this kind of love?” With that, he disappeared to the bar. When he returned, he had three tall drinks the hue of the Atlantic (we still don’t know what was in them). For the rest of the afternoon, the three of us shared love stories and a table as I laughed, cried and downed glass after glass of aqua-blue liquor.

Twelve years later, there is Gina on the telephone from Miami reminding me of the lessons that were served with those blue drinks. Just because a love doesn’t last does not mean it wasn’t real. And more importantly, says Gina, “You opened yourself up and your heart loved again. You can’t be sad about that.”

No, I can’t. Here’s to blue drinks and blue days They both help us to appreciate good times, best friends and great loves more.

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Maria Elena Fernandez can be contacted at maria.elena.fernandez@latimes.com.