In the beginning...

Richie & I met back in 1996 in the Asheville, NC area. It was actually a small town right outside of Asheville called Fairview. My Mother and I had rented videos from his family's video store for many months and I had seen Richie several times before but never really looked up if you know what I mean. Sometimes we can get so busy in the every day life that we never truly stop and take a minute or sometimes even a second to look up. So one day I was on the internet in a local chat room and lo and behold there was Richie in that room. We began talking back and forth and when I realized that he worked at the video store I was renting videos from I was baffled. As time went on we officially met in person and had our first date. Literally from that moment on we were completely inseparable. I had finally found somebody who loved going to movies, heading to the batting cages, playing miniature golf, going to the bookstore for hours, and just enjoying life. I was so excited to have a best friend and later boyfriend to just spend most of my time with that later when Richie told me that he was signed up to go to college in Raleigh almost 5 hours away my heart sank. I thought how could this happen?! The time finally came for him to relocate and God had called my Mom and I back to Southern Cali to take care of my Granny who was not doing very good at all. Richie and I stayed in touch with emails, phone calls when we could afford it, and instant message through aol at the time. I still couldn't understand what God was doing and why this happened but we both eventually went on with our lives and wound up dating other people off and on. It was later that I went through a horrific marriage and divorce and he went through a nasty breakup with someone he thought he may want to marry one day. Here we were yet again single and alone. We could not figure out how we both kept winding up alone. I remember many conversations where we were talking about this and we just felt like maybe we were either losers or just meant to be alone. But through it all we always remained good friends and we talked about one day meeting up again for a visit. Hmm I wondered would that day truly ever come? Your talking meeting back up somehow with a guy who lived on the opposite coast. I myself wasn't sure that that day would ever come.

~LF