I am lucky to have found such a love ...on this bit of plastic and wire .

3 years ago , I met Joe, he responded to my poetry page and said he liked my poetry .
I'm from New Orleans and i had just broken up with a man from London who shattered my heart with lies, i had said no more LD relationships for me ...no way !! About 4 months later i heard from Joe, he even installed icq to meet me (although i didn't know that then).

We kept missing each other and left messages, very platonic ones back and forth for some time ...then one day we both were online at the same time. We both were happy to be online at the same time. We talked and got to asking the usual questions all was going well till i asked him where he was from ..he said around London ...at that moment i thought it was my ex playing a cruel joke pretending to be someone else just to talk to me ..i just hit the sign off button without a good bye and cried.

The next day i was checking my messages and there was one from Joe, asking where i went to , if i got booted or if he said something wrong? I confronted him and he said, truly im NOT him Sarya , please believe me ..i can prove it you know, let me call you .... at first i said no , its not safe to give out your number but yet my heart tugged and i gave in and he called ........ his voice was so sweet and gentle and i felt like i knew him as we talked more and more.

About 6 weeks into it, i knew we both were starting to fall for each other ...my off-line friends and my family said i was nuts ,that online romances were just games. I had seen his picture and i found him so handsome, although i am a more wild type, his gentle settled nature calmed and gave me comfort ....i had lost much that year, my son at 17 had been killed in a car crash the Jan. of that year ...my dad died of cancer that May . Joe had lost his beloved father who was his best friend the year before. I had so many hurts and old memories of loves that fell apart ... Yet when he told me 3 months after we met online that he got plane tickets to fly from the UK to here in new orleans i was so excited .... we made such plans.

I decided with his helping me to find us a new apartment, so that when he came we could have a romantic place in the French quarter for our first Yule time together. I put down money on a place that needed work it was all i had and Joe had put a lot of his money into the move too ....it was to be ready Jan 1st 2000. In the meantime he would call my mom and she adored his accent she was 78 and set in her beliefs at first that Internet love affairs were always bad ..soon she started telling me she felt he was the one ...see i have 4 children now, one who is severely handicapped with autism so, usually when guys hear of that they flee, it's a hard thing to accept . But Joe's love was unconditional and real.

My mom was so excited that he was coming here to the states, he told her he would go meet her the day after he got here, which was to be Jan 7th ....she was so happy, she told me he was the one to not let him go, the more she knew him the more she loved him and she couldn't wait to meet him in person .... me too i was so afraid ..what if he didn't like me, what if i didn't look pretty enough for him ..all the while he worried the same thing.

My life again shattered on Dec 28th ......they found my mom dead in her chair of a sudden heart attack ..again i lost someone who loved me .....i was so so alone ..i called the UK crying, so lost, Joe cried with me and he tried to get his tickets changed but he couldn't ....so i buried my mom alone on Jan. 4th, i knew he was with me in my heart and he assured me Jan 7th was coming and he would be with me.

The day came, i went to the airport as people got off the plane i scanned each face ..... there was no Joe ....suddenly i thought ..oh no maybe it was all for nothing maybe he just didn't come ..i watched the stewardess get off and didn't see any more folks getting off , i started to turn away and then i glanced one more time, there he was, he had let the others with big bags and small children go before him ....(i think he was scared too). We hugged each other and walked out to the car and kissed till the windows steamed up!! We were so happy yet sorta shy too ....i will never forget his jet lag and the fact he couldn't sleep poor baby .

Then all hell broke loose, due to my moms death i couldn't get moved into the place that we paid for yet ...we went to check on the place ..the landlord said it wasn't ready which was horrible for we HAD to move out of my old apartment, someone new was waiting ....

So on his second day here with no sleep and for the next four days we moved to a place we paid to get, we paid double the landlord who didn't have our place ready hauled ass with our money as well ...... $2,000 gone.

On the 6 the morning i awoke and he was dressed up in a suit and tie , looking so handsome! I asked where are you going ? He said we are going to see mom , i promised your mother you know...at first i was a bit stunned and asked him, umm but my mom is dead. He looked at me and said Sarya, a promise is a promise and i have some things to tell her, we drove the hour away to where just the week before i had laid her to rest, he had bought her a dozen pink roses (her fav) As he knelt by her grave he said "mama i'm here, just as i said and mom your lil girl is beautiful ...just as i promised you mama i will love her forever and never let her down .."

I was beyond touched. My daughter and i just cried as he talked more telling her of the future he had planned for me and the kids, how my days of struggle and being alone were over now. I knew when i looked at him he was my forever from that moment on. So much has happened since that day... We have endured so much being an ocean apart although he has come about once every 3 months to be with me. The times apart are agony and his calls each day i live for.

Last spring i'm ashamed to say i hurt him and broke off our relationship ...the distance had got so hard on me and i admit i was stupid to fall for another's temptations , but soon i knew it was again someone playing me and i cursed the fact i had lost the only real love i have ever know !!! We spoke still at times, he would ask about the kids , how he missed them , how he still wanted to be in touch with them and to in time be my friend .....After the guy broke my heart it was Joe who asked if i wanted him to speak to the new guy ....i said no its over and i deserve all i got , i was a fool and then said bye and signed off.

The phone rang ....it was him he said Sarya , lets try again please , let move through it together ..... i couldn't believe it i had been so stupid yet he still loved me? I said yes and we started rebuilding our lives again ....after 2 months apart. Then last august again fate struck in a cruel way , life's lessons are so painful for us all at times ... i awoke with a bad headache that day ..it was worse then i had ever known ....as i was talking to my son in the kitchen, i fell and my son realized i had suffered a stroke ... a stroke at 39 .........................My life again changed, when i awoke my entire left side was useless, paralyzed totally.

I told Joe that it was best he move on that i truly couldn't burden him with my disability, i wasn't sure what i would end up as, he is 7 years younger then me and truly i didn't wish to hold him down .... i had lost my health , my job in management all in one day. Since then he has been my rock, my knight in shinning amour and he has helped me learn to walk and talk again. He understands what the stroke has done, yet our love is so very strong ....... On Dec 30th on a rare cold new orleans night when the joke was (cuz it was so cold and the saints won) that hell itself froze over - he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife and slipped a ring so beautiful on my hand ... we will marry next valentines day !!!!

Right now we face a battle with immigration it seems, its a lot more involved then we thought but we are in love and determined to be together forever with no more ocean parting us anymore !!

We made web pages to each other they are ....

His for me

Mine for him and Another I made for him

and 
 
Our family page

The poem on my second page to him is called airport dances , its about saying goodbye as we have had to over the past 3 years ...... but not for long now .

I may doubt many things in this life ...but i will never doubt his love for me again nor mine for him, he is my world. Sorry to have rambled just wanted to share a happy Internet love story ... i hope we give others hope.

"Sarya"

>> Continued in Part Two