Want to read where our story began?  Check out part 1 and part 2.

After my epiphany, I knew that it was time for Big Daddy and I to meet.

I was cagey at first.  I swung wildly between wanting to see Big Daddy RIGHT now and wanting to go back into hiding over fear of a possible rejection.  Let’s meet now, let’s not.  He’ll love me, he’ll hate me.  I’m sure I drove people crazy, but I couldn’t help it. I’ve always been anxious and it seemed like everything was hinging on this meeting.  My whole future.  Everything.

We decided on a Saturday in October.  Frankly, I have no idea why we picked it.  I had to work a split shift that day and only had a few hours to give to Big Daddy that day.  Of course, looking back it was safe.  Super smart.  We couldn’t meet much earlier than noon, because I was working.  We couldn’t stay together after 3:30 or so because I had to be back to work.  If it was an unmitigated disaster, it would be brief.  If it wasn’t….

…Well, I wasn’t expecting much success.  Really.

Big Daddy flew in that Saturday morning and a mutual chat room friend (with whom we’ve lost touch, but I wish we hadn’t) picked Big Daddy up from the airport and drove him the near hour from the south side of Detroit to where I lived.  A little town tucked into a small lake between two of the great ones.  Of course, I had to have a posse.  No one trusted me with two guys from a chat room.

So, me and four of my closest friends showed up at a local restaurant in the early afternoon.  We were there early.  We were seated.

I didn’t have a cell phone.  It was back in the day when they were bricks and expensive and I was a college student and college students are famously broke.  We waited at the restaurant.  I watched the parking lot.  I had no idea when Big Daddy would arrive or if he would.  If his feet would get cold. If he would change his mind.  I sat and I waited.

I hadn’t seen much of Big Daddy.  Just a few pictures. A vague idea.  His height.  The color of his hair and eyes.  What he would look like was only a guess, but somehow I knew what he would feel like.  Or what I hoped he would feel like.

After what felt like a million years, but was really only minutes, I saw him.  Or who I assumed to be him.  Tall.  Dark hair. Black leather jacket.  Accompanied by another man who looked like  I  assumed our mutual friend to look.

I felt, for a minute, like Melanie Wilkes in the Gone with the Wind.  When Ashley comes home from war?  She’s on the porch at Tara and she sees another soldier coming up the road to Tara.  She sees him and turns to tell Mammy they’re going to need more food.  She turns back again, and there’s suddenly something about this soldier.  The way he walks or the exact color of her hair.  Her hand flies up to her throat for a second, and her face splits into a smile and she and Ashely flies into each others arms.

(Is this the time to say I never liked Melanie?  I’m team Scarlet.  Except for when it comes to Ashley.  I’m also Team Rhett).

Something about the way he walked.  Something about him.  It was him.  I knew with certainty.  I got up out of myself. I pondered running.  I really did.  Like a movie.  I argued with myself as I walked through the restaurant and out the door if it would be lame to run? Needy? Weird?

I didn’t run.  I regret that.

But I hurried.  And he hurried. And then I was in his arms.  I kissed him twice on the cheek and he kissed me once on the lips.

And I don’t want to sound sappy, but I was home.

Want some background?  Our story starts here.

Let me start off by saying that Big Daddy was NOT a part of the prison penpal program.  Those who know us know our story and know why I loved Big Daddy with all my heart, despite us never having met.  All of those conversations and interactions were long distance.  All I had was the warmth of his voice and his words and a few pictures (one that included a full moon).

Big Daddy and I met on the Internet.

In a hockey chat room.

You know, back when we first met and married, it seemed strange to say that.  People would appear mildly shocked.  But now, Internet matchmaking features prominently on mainstream t.v. and suddenly the whole premise of an Internet romance isn’t so strange anymore.

As the summer passed, Big Daddy was getting more pushy about us meeting.  He was coming to Michigan for a meet up with some other folks from the chat room, couldn’t we meet up then?

I declined.

I was afraid.

You see, I thought Big Daddy was so wonderful and I felt so ordinary.  He was funny and smart.  He was working at a great company (I mean, it was a crappy job but whatever.  I was working part time at a grocery store) and I was still in college, really foundering as I tried to figure out something that I wanted to do that would pay the bills.

All of my insecurities fell down on top of me when Big Daddy would start asking to meet. I felt fat.  I felt ugly.  I felt immature.  I felt stupid.  I felt very unworthy of the things that Big Daddy was.  And all of that was the one thing that I couldn’t find the courage to talk to Big Daddy about.  I know now that if I had told Big Daddy about what I was feeling, he would have eased my concerns just like he always does and always did.  But, I couldn’t put those thoughts into words, so I put Big Daddy off.

Big Daddy confided to mutual friends that he thought the problem was him.  That I was putting him off because I didn’t know how to let him down.

That couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I was afraid that the me Big Daddy knew, from ICQ and the phone wouldn’t be the me he found.  And I had this inkling that Big Daddy and I could be so great together, I was afraid of the failure that could come.  What if we met and one of us found the other intolerable? Or revolting?  Of course, I figured it would be him finding me intolerable or revolting and I didn’t think I was able to take that rejection.  Even though my stalling left Big Daddy feeling rejected.

When Big Daddy came into town for the chat room meet up, I was at home just a little ways away.  He respected my need for space and shyness and despite wanting to, he didn’t come to see me.  Despite threatening me, our friends didn’t drag me to him. I spent that day knowing that all I had to do was get in the car and I could be in Big Daddy’s arm, but  fear kept me grounded at home.

That night, I called Big Daddy after the meet up.  He was sleeping at the airport.  In a phone booth.  I love that about him.   We talked while he dozed and I was regretful that I had let the opportunity pass.  I realized that I’d never know how great we could be if I didn’t move further.  I had to push past the fear.

One night in August, I was home alone again.  My parents were camping with my siblings and my neighbor was underage and had a WILD party.  He’d managed to cut his head open in the midst of a drink induced temper tantrum. I was trying to decide the best way to help him and called Big Daddy for advice.

“I wish you were here”, I said to Big Daddy.

“Be careful what you say,” he said. “Because I’ll get in the car if you say the word.”

But it was very late and I was very practical.

“I’ll be fine”, I said.  “I just feel better talking to you.”

In the dark in the kitchen, talking on the beige phone on the wall with the cord stretched out from a family of phone pacers, I was connected to Big Daddy as I watched the goings on at my neighbors house.  I got ready to get off the phone because it was so late.  And that’s when it happened.  There in the dark. In the kitchen. On the beige phone.

“I love you,” he said. My knees wobbled and turned to jelly.  I slid quietly down the side of the fridge to the floor.

“I love you, too,” I said.  And I did.  And this playing coy stuff was going to have to stop.  Because rejection or not, I wasn’t sure I could live without Big Daddy for one more minute.

Companionable –adjective

possessing the qualities of a good companion; pleasant to be with; congenial.