I met a wonderful woman through the internet a couple of months ago. Some mutual friends connected us. We messaged back and forth for a few weeks and found we had a lot in common---we’re both rescue dog owners, both recently went through messy divorces, both just bought old houses, the list went on and on. Then she gave me her phone number and asked me to call her. I called on a Friday evening, and we talked for three hours. We had so much to talk about and she was so pleasant to talk to. We ended up talking every night for the next month, and texted back and forth a lot. Then we exchanged email addresses and sent funny comments back and forth at work, and kept each other smiling all day. We became good friends in this time.

Along the way, I found that she lived about a day’s drive away. We decided that we should meet in person, and made plans for me to take a long weekend and drive there. She said I could stay at her house. She had enough room, and there were no motels in her small town. I promised I would be a ‘perfect gentleman’, and she thanked me for that, so there was an understanding from the beginning that nothing more that friendship was expected.

This happened weekend before last. I arrived late on Friday evening, and we just sat on her front porch talking until well past dark, and spent some time looking at the night sky.

Saturday, she drove us up into the mountains nearby and showed me some of her favorite places. We drove around there for hours enjoying the scenery. That evening, I cooked us a nice dinner (she didn’t cook), and we watched a crazy movie. It was really a great day together.

Sunday, something had happened. She said she had a bad headache and was feeling sick. We watched the news for a while, then she said she wanted to get some rest, and perhaps I should just leave early, since she wouldn’t be good company. She said she would call me while I was on the drive back home. 8 hours later, she texted me a short note. I couldn’t reply with a text at 80 MPH, so I tried to call. Her phone was off, and I left a message. She never called back. When I got home, I texted her that I arrived safely, no reply.

Sunday morning was the last time I spoke to her. During the next week, she replied briefly to a couple of emails, but never returned my calls. One night, after waiting till late for her to call back, I texted her “why won’t you talk to me?’ She replied back “I’m trying to sleep. Good night.’ That was the last I heard from her.

We had talked in our chats about how difficult it was to have trust after past experiences, and we promised to talk it out if we had issues. I guess that was just hollow talk, because whatever happened to our friendship last weekend, she won’t talk to me about it. It is killing me wondering what I did, or didn’t do, or said, or didn’t say, or did she start to panic about getting too close to someone? I can accept if the friendship is over, but I can’t be at peace with it not knowing what happened.

Through this past week I have remained sober. I repeat that Daily Strength has given me an inner resolve that I never had before. I am determined that not even this latest challenge will send me back into a bottle. But this loss has shaken my faith in people and in God. I thought 2-1/2 years after my divorce, I had found someone I could trust. We live so far apart, we both have good jobs, and both just bought houses, so a real relationship wasn’t going to happen any time soon if ever, but it was so wonderful to have a friend like her to talk to. We could talk about our deepest darkest secrets from our pasts without judgement from the other. It had to be an act of God that two people with such similar stories and interests crossed paths at that precise moment in time. God brought that wonderful woman into my life and then abruptly took her away again, and I find myself looking up and asking WHY? I pray every day that He will ‘talk’ to her and convince her to call me and just please explain ‘what happened?’ But each day I look for the blinking blue light on the phone and it’s not there. I had a few short weeks of happiness for the first time in years, and now it’s just me and my one remaining ‘true friend’, my little dog. Alone again, and feeling so lost and betrayed, but thankfully still sober.