Colin and Sherri
My
cousin Dennis was mad. Yep that was it. No other way to explain it, just plain
and simple, he was off his rocker. Marrying some woman he'd met on the Internet. The
Internet, I ask you! As with most of the surprises life throws up at you, just when
you least expect it to happen to you, it does. OK, you may be thinking at this time,
what on earth am I talking about. Hey come on people, what else could I possibly
be talking about, what else causes so much excitement and confusion.........L.O.V.E.
Hey with an opening paragraphs like that I could be writing a Nick Hornby book, or
the opening to a new theatre production, but I'm not you know, this is my life and
this is just how the most important part of it began.........
My name is 2077652, my friends know me as Colin, or if you only know me on
the Internet you'd probably better know me as Col-Boy. Col-Boy was a nickname
I first acquired at my first job and one that I must admit I quite enjoy having.
In fact you could say I love it as it's also the license plate of my car. Hey
what the heck, it keeps me happy.
Anyway you may be thinking, what's all this 2077652 lark about, Well
you could call it something akin to my Internet telephone number. It's the number
that I was designated when I signed up for ICQ, the now hugely popular instant messaging
software (software that allows you to send messages instantly between you, your friends
and also total strangers).
You might thing 2077652 is a big number. Think again, when you sign up
for ICQ now, I think it allocates a nuber in excess of 200,000,000. Anyway where does
this all fit in and how does it relate to my wife and I?
I'd been signed to to ICQ for about 3 or 4 months. I only really joined to enable
me to talk to my cousin Dennis who returned to Australia from England to be with his
Mum, whom we later found was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Over the course of these
months, I had become comfortable with ICQ and had made a few friends the world over.
I'll mention a few handles here, sorry if you've been forgotten, but over the years
I have been using ICQ less and less. Ooops, those names, yes well there was
Kooky, Sir Cartland, Luvnlife, to name but a few.
The night I had my encounter, was a night like any other. I was sitting on my
computer (ha ha, no I don't mean parking my bum on the monitor) when up popped a message.
I'm not gonna pretend that I remember evey word, but it was something like, 'hey there
wanna chat' and chat we did. As far as I was concerned this was just like any other
random chat I had participated in, but there was one huge difference. When this
person signed off, she did so in a very intriguing fashion, she said 'I've cast my
spell on you'. I'll be honest I didn't think too much of this, but it did strike
me as strange even then.
Days turned to weeks and I'd all but forgotten about Kat, when out of the blue in
the late hours of the night a message popped up on the screen... 'Remember me?'
I won't go into the specifics of what we talked about, but sufficient to say we burnt
many a midnight oil. I can actually remember talking online for 10 hours on
one occassion.
Sherri's first trip was amazing. We felt we had so much in common. I showed her the sites and we just had a blast. This however made it all the harder for us to say goodbye when it became time for Sherri to leave. I won't dwell on the sadness of that day, but it made us all the more eager to see each other again. Over the next few months we saw each other on 5 more occasions, with Sherri or I having to take a flight. The last trip was with Amanada and Alanna to come to England and take me home......... to Canada.
Well that basically wraps it up. I could go on forever with the stories of all the fun times we had and are still having. We were married on October 7th 2000 in a small ceremony, in a beatiful little church in Nepean, a small suburb of Ottawa. My Mum and Dad were able to come over for the wedding as was a good friend of mine Alan Maloney, who was also my best man. We had an excellent part on the eve of the wedding and also a great wedding reception. It will be a day I remember for the rest of our life.
So what of the future?? What indeed. Watch this space...
Watch this space indeed. Since this was originally written, Sherri and I are now the parents to 4 girls. On top of that we are going to be hearing the pitter patter of tiny feet again. It's a 50-50 chance it's going to be a girl and we couldn't be happier either way. No one can ever say we lead a dull life :-)
& 