Having been married for 30 years, I found myself suddenly a widow. I didn't have a clue where my life was headed. Friends seem to stay away, I guess thinking that I would rather be alone, but that was the farthest thing from what I needed. I needed people and conversation. I needed to feel that I wasn't supposed to just crawl in a hole and die.
I'm one of those types of people, who are the last ones to do something, or buy any thing that is up to date. I was still using a rotary phone, which drove my family crazy, when everyone else they knew had "touch tone". Call me old fashion, but I didn't miss what I never had before. They kept telling me to get out of the stone ages.
After 3 months of widowhood, my brother suggested I get a computer. Now, why would I want to do that, when I was afraid of them? I swore I would never touch one, let alone buy one.
I was about to come out of the stone ages. I bought one. Little did I know, that the day I bought it was the first day of the rest of my life.
It took me 2 weeks before I got brave enough to touch that computer. When I did, there was no stopping me.
I found a new life on the Internet and thought I was in heaven. I went anywhere in the world that my heart desired, without leaving my home. I was amazed.
My kids, having been educated in computers, thought I was a little goofy by the way I acted. I was like a kid with a new toy.
I still had my down time, and wished for some company, but I was filling lots of my time up surfing all different kind of sites. It didn't satisfy a need that I had for people, though.
One day, my sister-in-law said I should try going into a chat site. I could meet people my own age and get the conversations I needed, and maybe find others who had been through what I was going through.
I took her advice, and another turn in my life was about to evolve. I met some really great people in a chat room, who became, and to this day, 6 years later, my best friends.
I was really enjoying life. I became a fixture in the chat room, which became my Internet home. Day in and day out I lived in that chat room.
I live on the east coast, and I would see my fellow east coast chatters leave, and I would greet the west coast chatters, when they would come in at night.
After chatting for 6 months, it being just after the Christmas holiday, the chat room was full of chatters. Everyone trying to keep up with all the conversation, when a person entered, and I said hello. He said hi back, and we started chatting. He was widowed too.
It didn't take long for all the other chatters to disappear, or so it seemed. To me, it was as if there were only the two of us there. We talked all night, and all the next day, and every day after that. If there were ever anyone in the world for me, he was the one.
The more time we spent chatting online, the more we found we had in common.
He worked nights, so we would chat all day until he needed to rest. It had gotten to the point where we didn't want to be apart.
Finally the day came when we decided we needed to meet in person. He was just going to visit and then go back home. Well, what if he went back home and we never seen each other again?
Another thing I had sworn to myself was I would never have another man in my life. The one that had been in my life for 30 years, was hard to live with, I guess we tolerated each other. We had nothing in common, nothing.
Now, back to my story. We set a date for us to meet, but plans had changed, I asked him if he wanted to just move here. He said sure.
Oh, dear God, what had I done? I was scared. Why on earth did I say that, did I really say that? Yes, I sure did.
I worried that once we met, we wouldn't like each other. Well I have never been so wrong. When he walked through my door and saw me, he said, " I'm home".
This year we will celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary, and we are still like a couple of newlyweds. We have more in common that anyone I have ever known.
We still compute on a regular basis with our friends we met in chat, they are our extended family.
K.E.Shaeffer
This was written Oct.27,2006
