Sad News I Found Out

About 6 years, when I had recently moved back to Arizona from living in Florida for 2 years, I tried my hand at online dating and met a man named David, who lived not far from me. We exchanged emails back and forth and I found that I looked forward to his emails, because until other men who can't put an email together to save their lives, or who would take days to respond back, he would write me pretty much every day and tell me about whatever went on in his day, and I in return would do the same. After a month or so of email, we decided to meet in person.

At first, I liked him, but wasn't sure if he was going to be anything romantic to me, or just a new great friend. But we had great conversation, sitting in a Starbucks for a few hours. After that initial meeting, we continued to chat and went out on another date. This time, during our date, something happened to him that scared me, it was like he was having a mini seizure. Turns out, that's exactly what he was having. He told me he had a benign brain tumor and it caused this to happen to him from time to time. I will admit, at first I was sort of scared of the not knowing when this might happen or how to help me when this happened to him, but he told me to just hold him and help him through it, and just be there for him.

Over time, we continued to talk and go out and become really good friends. Then feelings started to develop, and we turned out friendship into a romance. We were friends for a year, and dated for a year. He was the first man that I ever loved, when I really discovered what love was, yet he was never really ready to commit to me. It seemed he always wanted to see what else was out there in life. I didn't quite understand it at the time, although over the years I have come to realize why.

We spent a lot of time doing things together, going to movies and hockey games, he took me to see the Boston Pops when they came in town. His family was so nice and welcoming to me. When I had broken my elbow, he was there with tears in his eyes when I woke up in ICU looking terrible, his dad there with him.

Unfortunately, he had this brain tumor, and I always worried that one day it was going to turn into cancer. The doctors had said that were the tumor was, it was inoperable, but I spent a lot of time researching different options and procedures he could do to help shrink the tumor and reduce the side effects from it. He didn't seem open to the idea of doing anything to help the situation, and his family seemed to know that he didn't want to deal with it, so they didn't really bring it up or be into seeing if there was any possible treatments out there. Now, of course, this is what it seemed like from my point of view, I wasn't privy to their private family discussions, so maybe they did discuss these things. I don't want it at all to seem like his family didn't care about his health.

In 2003 things started going downhill in our relationship, he met a girl and started dating her, while stringing me along. I should have just been strong and said forget this, if you want to cheat on me, then do it and I am gone, but I kept hanging out, thinking that perhaps he would see what he had and come back. Of course, I was young and naive about relationships. We ended up parting for good, with him calling me to let me know he was engaged to this girl he had cheated on me with. He then called me four days before his wedding, telling me that he had thought about just getting out of the whole thing, with it seeming to me that if I had given him the open door that I would take him back, that perhaps he would take it. He didn't seem very happy to be getting married. But I was strong and didn't fall into the trap.

It took me a long time to get over him, I suppose what I really was grieving for was the friendship we had, more then the relationship. I missed doing things with him and just talking to him. Over the years, I've always wondered what happened to him, and if his health was well. I always worried that one day that tumor might get the best of him, and I hoped it never happened.

I went on with my life, and as you know from reading this, I am happily in love with my husband and have taken what I learned from that relationship and applied it to the relationships I've had after that, and grown. The past few days though, something has been nagging me, it has been on my mind that maybe something happened to him. So I decided last night to look up his sister's myspace page, I had seen a long time ago that she had one. And right there on her hero's section of her page, she had that her big brother David was her hero, and said he had passed away in October of 2006.

I wish I could say I was shocked to see that, but I guess I kinda figured he didn't have long for this life, which is why I know now that the reason he acted the way he did, never settling down with me and always keeping options open, was because he may have felt the same thing. I feel for his family, because he was a good man and knowing how close they all were, this must have been completely devastating. And it is so strange that someone I knew so closely is no longer with us. I'm sad over it, but not crying or distressed. It has been five years since I lost spoke to him and we had no contact whatsoever after that. He moved on, and so did I. I just feel for his family and friends. The good thing is that know he is home with the Lord, I know that he happy and healthy again.