With love I remember again, when we first met online, I had no clue as to how much I would grow to love you. Time can change many things and it continues to change me. Back then, you were so shy that I found it difficult to converse with you. Although it seemed you wanted to, you often could not find a way to talk with me. For a long while, I wondered if I was rambling on and on into the vacuums of cyberspace typing on endlessly about my dreams, aspirations, convictions, goals, and those things that make me rage. It never does my blood pressure good to think about all the unjustness built into what we call civilized culture today. Sigh, anyway.

Then I wander on until you find me again. Often, you listened for wile but I never knew when you would log off. Sometimes at the end of a tale, other times before I could get there, I would find that you had gone. I had not known you were sick back then. I also had not known just how important my talks were to you. They were like a branch to hang onto as you tried to escape what seemed the inevitable. Chemo was trying to kill you and I was talking about paradise, or rambling and ranting until you were bored senselessness but hung on anyway.

Because you are terribly shy inside, and have a deeply wounded inner-self, like I, it had taken years to find that you had been listening as I typed, at least much of the time. It took even more time to find the things you liked and our common interests. Then, finally, to find a way into your depths to see imprisoned within a beautiful, warm, and gifted soul struggling desperately to deal with a tormented mind and body in an unkind world.

Even back in the beginning, I somehow knew that you needed me to talk with you. I could hear you pleading for help in ways you never asked. Often, you did not know that I heard or that I truly cared. I did not know what to say and had issues of my own to deal with. However, talking with you helped me too. Perhaps you do not realize how much you have helped me find peace just by sharing your life with me… even if in a strange way. You helped me heal inside too. Regardless how I rant, my life is better with you around to listen and do your best to console my tormented soul.

I owe you more than gifts and loving thoughts but they are all I can offer along with a shared reality and my heart. The more I grew to know and understand the beauty within your soul the stronger my feelings of love for you have grown. Today, I cannot imagine finding you out of my life and not be very sad and miss you for the rest of time or until we met again.

I love you Tammy. From my soul to your soul, I love you.

By Michael A. Crane, Jr.
Original Title: Marry Christmas Love
Original Version: E-mailed December 24, 2004
Heavily Revised Version 2: January 9, 2005
- several hours late -
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