Eileen Loveman Daily Posting

As you may or may not know, I met my husband on the internet.  Not on a matchmaker website or an online dating service, but through a writer’s group.   The website was a place for aspiring writers to post their musings, short stories, poetry or chronicle the experiences they wanted to share with the world.  In the beginning, it was new and exciting, and I looked forward to posting something every morning.  It was a fun place to be back then. 

I also made a lot of friends on the website, commenting on the things they had posted as well as they commenting on mine, and some interesting conversations came about because of our comments.  I made some good friends who lived in the area where I live, and we often got together for dinner around the holidays, or visited during the summer.   Some friendships wore themselves thin and faded away; others grew stronger as we travelled together towards learning new things about ourselves and what we were capable of.  

One of these friends was a woman named Teresa, even though she didn't live nearly as close as I would have liked.  Although she lived in Utah, it could have been down the road.  Her upbringing and mine, however,  were about as far apart as they could be.  She lived on a farm when she was young; I lived in the city of Queens, NY.  Her religion was Mormon and mine was Irish Stalwart Catholic.  She was married for 20+ years, and I had left a 25 year marriage.

For all the seemingly opposite traits we held, there were as many similarities which we shared.  We both loved our big families, mine consisting of 6 children and she having 5.  We loved being self sufficient and independent (as independent as someone with 5/6 kids in tow could be) and encouraged our off springs to be independent as well.   We reveled in the holidays and all the chaos it brings. We both had great senses of humor and cried at the drop of a hat. 

But there were two things we had in common that cemented the bond we felt with each other: 

We love to write.  I admired her talent immensely and wrote to tell her continuously.

We love God.   No matter who he was.

I consider her to be as close to me as any of my friends who have graced my life since I was 7 years old.  I can tell her anything without feeling judged or embarrassed, yet we have never seen each other’s faces except for pictures.

So I felt no fear at all when I decided that I finally had to tell someone about the possibility that I might have cancer.

From her wheelchair, she dispenses the loving advice I needed.  It was two years before she shared her prognosis with me.  My admiration of her spirit knows no bounds.