Roll Me Away

I start to reflect upon the two-year anniversary of the death of my love while driving to my favorite spot. I pop a CD in and Bob Segar begins to sing Roll Me Away. I get to the spot at the lake and roll the windows down on my car so that I can still hear the music. I sit on the trunk of my car watching the water ripple and the sunset, reminiscing about what should have been.

We met online in a role-playing chatroom. I had been chatting in this chatroom for a few months, making friends when this guy came in. He was the funniest guy, always making jokes and playing tricks on people. I always wondered how many people were the same online as they were in real life because if he was the same in both places, then that was someone who I wanted to become friends with. We started talking and realized that we liked a lot of the same things, like music, vehicles, tattoos, computers and motorcycles. He said that I was the coolest chick that he had met in a long time, even if it was only online. We talked for months online slowly learning more about each other, which took a while since each of us did not trust people online with our personal information.

Pictures took even longer to get. I was so happy six months later to finally put a face with those words that were being typed on the screen. About a year after we start talking he got a wonderful job with a Computer Programming Company and had to move farther away. On one of his planned visits back home we decided to meet in a local bar. I sat there waiting for him for over two hours. Feeling like a fool, I decided to get online and tell him exactly what I thought of him. When I got online there was a message waiting of me. It was from him, telling me how his child was ill and he was called back home and how he would let me know what was going on later.

His child was in the hospital for weeks before dying. I tried to help him out as much as I could by being there for him. I was there for him when he would get online drunk and crying. I tried to help him heal, but how do you heal a man who is dying inside and thousands of miles away?

I did the one last thing that I knew of that I thought could have helped. I told him how I felt about him. I told him how I had fell for him online and how I needed him in my life. He then told me that he was not enough of a man anymore and that if he was then he would have been able to save his child. I tried to convince him that was not the case and it was just something that happened. I gave him my address and phone number begging him to let me help him. He brushed it off, telling me how he didn't need anyone's help and would be fine. I let it go as a man in mourning.

Late one night a few weeks later I get a phone call from him drunk. He tells me that he is leaving to come home for a while and will stop by the next day. I wait for him and he never shows up. By this time, I am tired of all the pain and heartache and decide to give up on him. I figure that if he wants to get better and be with me, then it will have to be his own doing, but I was getting on with my life. I get online to email him and to tell him just that. There is a message waiting online for me from him. It said that he was sorry that he called me drunk, but he did want to meet me, but was afraid to because he wanted our first meeting to be under different circumstances and that he was afraid that he would do something that both of us would regret in the morning. I was very hurt but at the same time relieved. I knew that I would have never been able to tell him no and would have probably regretted it. I emailed him back telling him that I understood and that when he got his life back together, I would be there waiting for him all that he had to do was call. We talked off and on for a few more months but only as friends.

Out of the blue one day, the phone rings. I answer it expecting it to be a telemarketer. It was his best friend telling me that he had died overseas. I was devastated and heartbroken. I got the funeral details and hung up the phone. I sat there and cried for hours over what should have been. We held a memorial in his honor in the chatroom and after that night, I never went back. I didn't have the strength to go to his real funeral and I didn't think that it would be proper since none of his family knew me.

After months of mourning I decide to get on with my life. Granted it was like there was a piece missing, but I was for the most part happy. I had went back to school and gotten my degree. I had started working on my career and was working my way up the ladder. It has been 2 years since he died and I still feel the pain of it all.

I get in my car to leave since the sun had set and start to drive home. When I pull into my driveway, I notice a motorcycle pulling in behind me. I don't know anyone with a motorcycle so I figure that it is someone who is lost and in need of directions. I get out of my car and wait for this person to say something. The guy takes off his helmet and I stand there in shock. It is my dead online lover on the motorcycle looking at me.

" Hello love."

I just look at him and he smiles.

"Rick they told me that you were dead." my voice shaking.

"In some ways, I was."

All I can do is stand there with tears welling up in my eyes.

"You told me that once I got my life straight that you would be here waiting, so here I am."

Standing there in total shock with him grinning at me, I really didn't know what to do. All these questions were swirling around in my head and I just didn't know what to say.

"How about you invite me in for coffee. It was a long trip on this bike." He says grinning.

"Umm..ok…come on in then." I tell him.

I unlock my door and let him in the house. I make coffee and we sit at the dining room table talking.

I tell him how I got a phone call telling me that he was dead and how I mourned for him. He explained to me that his real job was never really a computer programmer, but that he was in the military and what he was into was top secret. When the enemy got to his child and the child died he knew that they were on to him and had to get away to protect the rest of his loved ones including me. So he set it up to look like he died and had to make it look real. He could not tell anyone that he was alive, including me. He had to wait until his enemy's guard was down and had to get rid of them. On his way back home from overseas, he decided to take a chance and see if I was still waiting for him, so here he was. He had not even been to see his family yet and let them know that he was alive.

I was astonished and very happy that he was alive. I didn't know what was going to happen after this. We talked all night and decided to see how if it was as electric in real life as it was online. After getting some sleep, we got up and he got ready to leave so that he could see his family and explain to them what had happened. He was out of the military and safe and was ready to get on with his life. When he was packing his bag he looked at me and smiled.

"So are you ready to go?"

"Go? Go where?"

"With me of course. I want my family to meet the woman that I have loved for over three years."

My heart soared with happiness since I thought that maybe he didn't feel the same way that I felt about him. I packed what I could into the empty saddlebag that attached to his motorcycle and put the extra helmet on. As the lyric of the Bob Segar song "Roll Me Away" states: "And we rolled clean out of site."