My Renaissance Man

I wanna talk about my Dave tonight. First, I'd better tell you how he became MY Dave.

We met in 1999 in a Yahoo chat room called Cat Chat. He had just fallen for a woman in England. I had a strange feeling of jealousy even though I was happily married. He lived in California, and I lived in Texas. We quickly became good friends. Chat friends. That was all it was and all we ever thought it would be. Totally innocent. My husband said that any man who called himself Big D online was saying he was....well...gifted, so he forbade me to chat with him. So I snuck around and did it anyway. Well...hey....it WAS innocent. And the "D" stood for Dave.

Fast forward to January 2002. My 30 year marriage had just gone down the crapper. Dave had nothing to do with that, but he did remain a shoulder for me to cry on. A few months after Ex and I split, I decided it was time to meet Dave face to face, so I made arrangements to take a vacation in San Jose and surprise Dave for his birthday.

I called his brother and worked up this huge surprise. John would meet me at the airport and take me to Dave's office where we would finally meet. Little did I know that Dave figured out what was up and he turned the tables on me. I was surprised when he met me at the airport with a giant bouquet of flowers. :-)

We spent the next 4 days getting to know each other and traveling through his beautiful state. I'd always had a desire to see San Francisco. He took me there and showed me 'my bridge' for the first time.

Isn't it beautiful?








Three months later, he came to Texas to meet my friends and my sons. He spent 3 days, over the July 4th weekend...long enough to feel what a Texas summer is like.

Three months later, I returned to California and spent 10 days. By that time, we knew that we were more than friends, and we wanted to be together. We decided to live together in California, because Texas is just too hot. I told him my sons would have to agree, and we would have to wait another year until Gary was out of high school. When I talked to my boys about it, they told me that if their lives took them into other states, they wouldn't hesitate to go, and if I would be happy with Dave, I should go with their blessings. Sooo...a year later, I moved to California.

Dave is a puzzle sometimes. He lives with chronic pain of having most of the cartilage in his joints gone and rarely complains, but let the cat scratch him, and he's breaking out the Neosporin and bandaids.

He can get all misty eyed at a sappy movie or he can load and fire black powder guns, or tell you how to prospect for gold like the 49ers did.

He can share Jesus with a  homeless person and give them money for a meal, or he can let out a stream of profanity that is almost lyrical.

He crochets blankets from scrap yarn and gives them to charity, he oil paints beautiful landscapes.







He has become Grampy D to my grandsons. He's the one I've gone through grandparent-hood with, and he loves those boys as if they were his own flesh and blood.

Right now, we are so comfortable with each other. We never seem to run out of things to talk about. He is my best friend, my companion, my love, my man of many talents, and I can't imagine growing old without him.