Michael sent me an e-mail and I discouraged him at first because Portland, Oregon is over four hours from where I live in British Columbia. But he sent another message telling me he hoped to retire in my area and that a four- hour drive was not an obstacle. The e-mails flew back and forth and then the phone calls..the first one was over three hours long. He was intelligent, and funny with a very sexy voice. I was in love with him before I even met him and once I saw his gorgeous blue eyes and most beautiful smile I was doomed. Lucky for me, he felt the same way! Both of us thought we were marriage-shy, (he had been married for 28 years and treated quite badly for many of those years) but within weeks we were talking about how we could be together for ever.

It has not been easy. Our phone bills and airline bills have been enormous. Michael's work has taken him to Virginia and now San Francisco but we got engaged last year and by the summer of 1999, we will be married and living in Northern California. Michael and I are soul mates. For me, he is the whole of the various pieces of previous men that I was attracted to as if God were giving me glimpses of who was waiting for me. Similarly and eerily, Michael once had a brief affair with someone whose first name is identical to mine and whose last name differs by only one letter.

Here we are, two chubby people in their fifties, both grandparents, who are so hot for each other and so much in love that if I died tomorrow they would have to carve on my headstone: Here lies a woman who got everything she ever wished for. Thankyou BBWCity. You were the instrument who brought us together.

Barbara B.