Farewell, First Love: Luke Perry Stole The Hearts of a Generation

"It's Luke. He's my Dylan."

Shannen Doherty, who played Brenda on "Beverly Hills 90210," tearfully uttered the words during an interview with 'Entertainment Tonight' Sunday, just hours before Luke Perry, her on-screen love and lifetime friend, died Monday after suffering a massive stroke last week.

Her words echoed in millions of hearts around the world, as a generation of women cried at the news that their first love had died. When we heard the news of Perry's death Monday, we all felt as if our own worlds stopped, if only just for a moment. For that singular moment in time, we shed tears, together, for Luke Perry. For our Dylan.

Our Dylan, he died.

And I think I speak for all of us when I say, I just can't wrap my mind, or heart, around that news.

Make no mistake — Luke Perry's character Dylan wasn't just the first love of Doherty's Brenda Walsh. He was the first childhood crush, favorite teen heartthrob, forever troubled bad boy for millions — as many wrote on social media after Perry's tragic passing Monday: "He was the James Dean of my generation."

Dylan McKay, with that arched eyebrow, carefully coiffed hair, those smoldering eyes and his broken, troubled soul — he was a rebel who made us take pause.

A guy with issues, sure — the leather-clad loner on a motorcycle, with a penchant for drinking and a dad in prison, all red flags for Brenda's beleaguered parents Jim and Cindy. When Brenda started living with Dylan, who had his own, beautiful Beverly Hills house after living in a hotel, the plot line heated up. Jim shipped his starry eyed daughter off to Paris — and Dylan started hooking up with Kelly, Brenda's best friend, setting off one of the most heated and hotly contested love triangles in TV history.

Me? I was Team Brenda, all the way. Fans were pitted fiercely against one another, some cheering as Dylan started pursuing Jennie Garth's Kelly, but I was rooting for Brenda to get back with her first love — how we all cried when one of the most iconic teen couples of all time broke up. To this day, I can't hear REM's "Losing My Religion" without thinking about Brenda and Dylan. Their sweet young love, how she lost her virginity to Dylan after Spring Fling.

We were all Brenda that night, all that young girl on the threshold of womanhood. We all remembered that first rush of first passion, that exquisite moment of finding first love, the kind of ephemeral love we spend lifetimes trying to recapture.

Even though I was older than the typical wide-eyed Dylan fan — I had a young baby and was working full-time — "90210" was my never-guilty pleasure. I unapologetically adored that show, and as a young editor in publishing, appreciated that the writers were giving young viewers serious, real issues to contemplate — Dylan's drinking, Kelly's eating disorder, Brenda's pregnancy fears and sheer terror during a cancer scare.

Who am I kidding, though? Yes, the story lines were top-notch, the writing second to none. But while I, and all the others in my Dylan tribe, liked the whole "90210" gang — we were, without a doubt, all a little bit in collective love with Luke Perry. He was the boyfriend we wanted to have, or wished we'd had, in high school. The gorgeous, brooding, scarred, intelligent, sexy as hell — oh, and did I mention rich? — guy we all wished would roar up on that bad boy bike and sweep us away for the love of a lifetime.

IRL, Luke Perry went on to star in a series of films and TV shows — he was well-loved as the dad on the popular "Riverdale" when he died.

But for women of a certain age, Luke Perry will always be Dylan — The One, the first. He set the bar, and set it high, for scores of tender young hearts. With his tragic loss, the book closes on our shared childhoods, our teen dreams — our youth. Luke Perry was a touchstone, a link back to simpler times, when watching teen angst on "90210" and some good-natured bickering about the Brenda-Dylan-Kelly dynamic were the extent of our problems.

If Dylan could die, suddenly, in a literal heartbeat, at just 52, it's a stark reminder of our own mortality — a heartbreak too big and overwhelming to process, at least from where I sit, watching old YouTube videos of "90210," singing along to "Losing My Religion," and crying real tears as I listen to Shannen Doherty talking about her Dylan.

Someone posted a meme on Facebook: "Be nice to everyone you can on social media today. Everyone is mourning the loss of their pretend first boyfriend."

The thing is, while I'm sure it's meant to be funny, it's also painfully true, at least to all of us in the original "90210" fan club. We've all lost someone today, someone who shaped our young lives, our first tender dreams, our shared heartaches and hopes.

We've all lost our Dylan.

And there's a part of all of our hearts — the part that will always remember how it felt to be young and in love and frolicking with our friends and first loves on a sandy beach, blue skies overhead, the future as vivid and endless as the ocean beyond — that will miss Luke Perry and all he meant to all of us, forever.