It started out as most all affairs of the heart often do, with a quick smile and a click inside that begs you , or rather, dares you to want more. More conversation, more flirtatious grins, and that irrestible force of nature that leaves you wondering if this is real. 

It started out by a chance meeting, not looking for anything or anyone, in the middle of an autumn afternoon that was bright with sunshine and fresh with promise. And so it began.

Suffice it to say that all miracles happen for a reason and leave you sometimes wondering and believing and doubting and being bewildered all in a moment's time.

There comes a time in everyone's life when the question arises if we are meant to be alone in this world or if there's something more out there for each of us. A time when we find ourselves reflecting on the past events of our lives and wonder if they are bringing us closer  to our future, our destiny. I don't believe it has to be in any certain decade of our age, everyone's life and growth and maturity is different, that is what makes us so unique in ourselves. No, I believe it happens with a surge of the unconscious mind that begins trying to infiltrate the conscious of our actions and our lives. I believe that most of us don't even know we are experiencing it until something extraordinary or tragic or sad or beautiful occurs to us. And then it might still take some time for the realization to kick in and stop us in our tracks.  And yet, when it does happen, it is amazing unto itself.

Living life through rose tinted glasses, I heard a visiting professor explain that those of us who do favored fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White, to those of us who favored Jack and the Beanstalk and the like.  The dreamers and hopeful vs. the achievers and realists. I remember feeling quite sad when I was leaving the auditorium after hearing this, I was sure I was in the former group, being a proud lover of Cinderella and looking always for my prince charming to come and rescue me and make me" happy ever after."  But then I began to wonder what would prince charming rescue me from exactly? I had a very nice life at the time. I was smart and beautiful and kind and giving. I worked ata great job, had a nice place to live, was the top in my graduating class. So what could it possibly be? I had no idea that it would take me twenty more years to find out. Twenty years of falling and picking myself up, of hoping  and trusting and believing in the wrong shades of my heart. It was a rude awakening, a blissful and amazing journey and I came out of the shadows and found out for the first time what those fairy tales were truly all about.

His name was Roger. He was the most amazing man I had ever met. At first glance I was certain he was too old for me and just a friendly old guy who happened to stop in the bar for a drink after nine holes of golf. He made me smile when I was sad and he made me laugh out loud, something I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever do again.  And yet there I was, laughing at ridiculous jokes he had gotten off the internet and hearing funny diatribes about his many adventures in Atlantic City. I think I grabbed onto his heart when after one particular story I pulled out a fresh deck of cards from my purse and his eyes turned an amazing lighter shade of blue and he was visually eager for more of me. I knew it then, he knew it then. How I wish, in that moment of time, what precisely more of me would really mean.

He certainly was a charmer, how much of a charmer I still had to learn and recover from, but he was unique. An entire population could be so easily swayed by his infectious laugh and fantastic smile that I was sure there would be no more wars.  Perhaps that was what had blinded me at first. I immediately forgot what I was so sad about that I was spending this September Saturday in a bar, I immediately liked him. I instantly wanted to get to know everything you could ever possibly know about another person. I wanted to literally bask in his smile for as long as I could. And, I did. But, it wasn't long enough. It would never be long enough. As the same as addicts go chasing their favorite form of happiness, I found myself chasing him. Not literally, just wanting him to be forever there. Forever in my sight , an arm's touch away, even his silence was deafening to me. I never felt that way before, I am sure I will never feel that way again, he was pure magic and I was drawn to him like a virtual moth to a flame. He was my drug of choice, just like I've heard many people say that that first drink, they knew, or that first hit, they were hooked, only mine wasn't store bought or secretly copped, no, mine was living and breathing and standing right in front of me, with those beautiful blue eyes I so suddenly wanted to dive into and stay forever.

So it began and it was amazing.  He was magnetic, he was classy , he was funny and generous. Kindness embraced this man of the like I had never known. His heart was too big even for him, he was a gift. That was how I came to regard him, as a gift. And,  unlike other gifts that we have gotten tired of, he was relentless in his charismatic ways to always leave me wanting more. Always giving me the sense that there was still something I hadn't yet learned about him, I hadn't yet shared with him or laughed with him about. And, just like addicts, I was soon going through withdrawal symptoms when he wasn't around. Tears would suprisingly well up in my eyes when the phone would ring and it wasn't him, I never knew the meaning of loneliness until he would drop me off at home in the mornings and I would cry in the car all the way there. I didn't know what was happening to me. I had no idea that a person could have such an impact on another's heart before. To literally touch him, to touch another person in the most delicate of manners and long for an embrace in those big strong arms, I had no idea that that was my gift. That that was I had heard about twenty years earlier, that that was what rescue meant after all. I didn't know that that was what he was "gifting" me. My prince charming was actually rescuing me from myself.  And he did, and for that I will always be eternally grateful. Sometimes, they say , it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before. "They" never met Roger. "They" never got lost in the sound of his voice or the blue of his eyes. "They" didn't know. And, for all the breath that is left in me, no one will ever quite understand the magnitude of this one man's impact on my life, in my heart, to my soul. No one will ever truly get the full understanding of my mere words when I describe to them the beauty that was this man. The gift that was my Roger.