I was wrong. Elton John's silence signified that none of that mattered, and never did.

Perhaps was it time also for me to understand that Elton John in 2017 was a man who looked forwards only, and not backwards. That was the British artist’s rightful entitlement. Just like my attempt to remember and compile what had been so dear to me once was my full own right as well. No one was right or wrong here. It was just the way it was. I simply had to accept that situation without feeling any bitterness.

Fortunately, age and experience help to understand that life is nothing but a risky itinerary full of wrong turns, that lead the traveller into dead ends where any step backwards turns out to be perilous, if not impossible. What is done is done. Which of course does not prevent the road from having been sometimes a treat : those few brief occasions during which I had had the honour to ride a small part of Elton John's Yellow Brick Road were extraordinary –but felt as such by me only. My book was about all those marvellous moments. And it was them, and nothing else that I would remember from then on. The following couple of months made me think that I had succeeded.

Incidentally, a year later during the fall of 2018 and by pure chance, I had the pleasure of seeing again in Paris on his initiative a very close friend of Elton John, who had accompanied him since his very beginnings and was still part of his inner circle. Because I knew that gentleman to be fully trustworthy and because My Elton Years documented his key role in my meeting with the British Pop Star, I presented him a copy of the book as a private gift, in memory of what he had benevolently done for me four decades before. When he leafed through the book in front of me, his only reaction while perusing it (beyond the compliments he paid me and that touched my heart) was to exclaim spontaneously: "But has Elton really seen that? It's just unbelievable that he never mentioned it to me!”