Well, the opportunity presented itself. My daughter was to be married in July and that would be a great time to meet. I invited him to the wedding. All the family would be around. He would meet the whole gang. And I have quite a large family! Poor fella!

After a few conversations about the meeting, he took me up on the invitation to the wedding. I am not sure when all this was finalized, I was just very anxious to have this meeting take place. I asked him to fly down from Toronto. He said he would fly into Chicago, rent a car, and drive to the wedding in Indiana. I was not comfortable with this. I asked if he could possibly fly at an earlier date, and I would meet him and bring him to Indiana. This would give him a chance to back out if he so wanted. The plans were made. He would fly in on June 30, I would meet him and we would spend a couple days getting to know each other, before going to the wedding.

We finally met in the baggage area, after missing each other in the arrival gate area of the airport. All worked out. ;-) I saw him standing there, looking around. (my thoughts were that he thought I had stood him up. My thought, in the arrival area, was that he had changed his mind.)

I called out his name. He turned around. He had a big smile on his face. I gave him a big hug, as promised, and we left the airport. We stopped for lunch and had a wonderful talk. We stopped at my sister's house and took a walk along the riverbank. All was going well! I like this guy!

He had planned a 6 day visit. It turned it into a 17 day visit. I was very happy with the time we were spending together. We were having so much fun and sharing so very many moments of happiness. I was on cloud 9. I had not enjoyed life so much in quite some time. We were definitely enjoying the new-found relationship. We could sit quietly and say nothing and still be saying a lot. I did not want this visit to end.

Brian was and is a terrific fella, we became very close, I was falling in LOVE, but I had many inhibitions to deal with inside myself. I was feeling some doubt, and knocking myself down mentally. However, I was very happy that God sent this wonderful person into my life. I just needed to believe what was happening and accept this relationship into my life. All I could think of, was, after the wedding, he would be going back to Canada and I would never see him again. (These were MY inner thoughts.) However, I wasn't going to allow my thoughts to interfere with this wonderful meeting and we definitely had each other's attention. ;-)

I learned that his birthday was approaching the end of July so I made arrangements to fly to Canada to share HIS day. We spent another 2 weeks together. We went to Northeastern Ontario, spent some good time out in the wilderness of his property.(pictures below). After returning to the city, we repacked and ventured down to Niagara Falls for 2 days. This was quite a trip for me. I had never seen the Falls before nor had I been in Canada up to this time. The trip was all good. Someone please pinch me! ;-)

I am very protective of my feelings and my world. Fearing rejection and deception, I made things more complicated then need be. I had to learn trust and faith again. I had many walls to knock down. I had no faith in the male gender at the time of our online meeting, to tell the truth. Anything more than a friendship with a man was beyond my thinking. I didn't want a broken spirit, again. Thank God and Brian, for attempting to show me otherwise. It was a deep struggle.

All in all, things have moved along beautifully and we are still enjoying each other's worlds. Our love has blossomed to a very strong bond and we have since become almost inseparable. We have made many memories to hold. We have brought forth much love, shared many thoughts, tears, feelings, worlds, friends, families, and moods. We are still sharing and making memories every day. It's not an easy task to keep a long-distance relationship flourishing. Takes two very strong hearts with determination to grow together and we are doing it. I visit his homeland often and he visits mine. Either I am driving to Canada or he is driving to the States.

Through all the love that we share and emit daily, we are flourishing and we are very much a part of each other. I love him so very much and I thank him for being so tolerant of my many moods and insecurities. I thank God for bringing us together. By the way, many people know him as Pat, Patrick, or Genesomine, but I call him Brian or Babe. ;-)