First some background so that the significance of Ron's positive impact is all the more clear: Just months earlier I was happy and engaged to be married for the first time in my life at the age of 42 on July 4th of 1997 to a man I had known in college and with whom a romance quickly kindled after we re-established contact in 1996 after having lost track of eachother in multiple moves...and both being free for the first time since we had known eachother. Eric had drawn me completely out of my protective shell and was so wonderfully sweet and I trusted him so completely that I could not see the blow coming which would devastate me...which made it all the more devestating. In the middle of packing up my house and just days before quitting my job to move cross country to be with him for the rest of our lives, and his son (a wonderful boy whom I quickly learned to love), Eric just dropped a bomb...we were no more. I would later find out that he had dumped me for a gal I had thought was my best friend. (who also subsequently dumped him...!.) I did not react well to any of this - this being the final crushing blow after several years of heartaches and struggles with depression I just fell (was pushed) off the cliff into a deep clinical depression. I barely functioned. I went to work, I cried, I retreated to the darkness of one room with no hope left in my soul. I felt I had no reasons left to be alive. (Was a very Deep Depression)
One day late in september a friend and co-worker who knew that I had a computer mentioned a new program he thought I should check out called Vox Chat... I down- loaded it shortly after that and listened to people jabbering for a while but rapidly grew tired of the stupid yammering and irritating sounds and created a "Quiet Room" to escape. ...Ron entered my room and just sat there...after a long while I typed something in text and he typed back "SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I fell over laughing! It was love at first Shhhsh! He and a couple of his chat friends and I spent the rest of the evening and looong into the wee hours having the most hilarious fun together talking and changing our ID's based on what the other had done or some fun thought we had. After our fun we all exhanged ICQ numbers and Ron and I began talking every day for hours on end both rapidly becoming deprived of sleep. The more we knew the more we liked eachother. We got to know eachother from the inside out. It seemed like months but was in reality only weeks later when Ron asked: "If we get along as well in person will you marry me?" If he hadn't phrased it that way I could not have said yes...I did not know this person yet...I was having fun but there was much more to know and at the time I even remember expressing some fears to my co-worker that he was a bit 'clingy'. Well that stopped worrying me after a while, and became a rather endearing closeness....I later realized that Ron was really the first man of all the men from my past who really liked me! Ron lived in Montreal and I live in Florida so we arranged to meet in December - Ron flew here - his first airplane flight ever - for a week during which we began translating all that we knew about eachother into reality. We got along as well in person...we decided we wanted to be together...and agreed that the logical thing was for him to move to Florida. But he was a Canadian citizen...it was not that simple. We continued talking everyday and in February I couldn't stand it any longer, I needed to hold him next time I said I loved him, so I flew to Montreal to see him for a week. (Yes...in February....just after the ICE STORM! Now that's love!) Shortly after that trip we began the offical process of acquiring a fiance visa...I was reluctant to tell anyone I was engaged again after having been burned so badly...and knew that people would think it was both too soon and peculiar because we had met on the internet....even his brother poopooed it...can't be real....but how wrong they were. It was more real than any other relationship I'd ever had in my life. Ron's wit amused me daily, his gentle accepting nature healed my hurts, we grew together...our relationship became better and better and better as we learned about eachother. He single-handedly restored my ability to trust. I was truly loved. I'm told I had healing effects on Ron as well...and I do hope so...I can only relate the way in which he changed me. Love is a powerful and healing thing. I was loved. We looked forward to the day we could finally begin our lives together....whenever the government finally gave us 'permission' to be together. In June shortly before his birthday Ron came down to see me for a visit...and as fate would have it he stayed!
