The Story of Us Part 1

In 1998 I suddenly found myself a single mom. After 7 years of marriage I was forced to file for divorce. If the ex had Loryn for weekend visitation or when my parents had Loryn after her bedtime, I began dating. One guy I dated used ICQ to message, so I downloaded it to my computer.

I would spend the evenings after Loryn was asleep on this new ICQ (I SEEK YOU) , a message feature on my computer. February 5, 1999, I was bored, I had stopped seeing the local ICQ guy and I used the random chat feature. Like a slot machine I kept hitting random chat , by passing all of the middle Eastern guys looking for sex chat until I noticed a guy from Copenhagen, Denmark named Benny ! INSPIRATION! Maybe he could look up my long, lost Danish exchange student. I began bugging him daily if he had any luck looking up her number. Really, that was the only reason I had to talk to a guy in Denmark.
I said- "Here is her last known information, her parents' names and addresses and her last address , Please find her."
We chatted every day on ICQ until about Mid March. Eventually he did find the phone number of the long lost Exchange student ( post about her to follow soon). We soon were talking every day for about 2 hours. We set up Net meeting, a bit like skype, but with out pictures, I guess. We just logged in on net meeting as I went about my daily afternoon and evening routine. I taught kindergarten and picked Loryn up about 4 pm and brought her home, and she would run around and play and I would fix her meals all the while Benny would be listening in to the chaos that is toddlerhood. He did have to sleep, so it was not around the clock, and I remember there was quite the problem getting net meeting working on some days.
I remember his questions of what is that noise? ( Electric can opener) Why is she upset? (She is hungry.) Why is she crying ( She doesn't want to be still long enough to change her diaper) I think he pitied me... or Loryn , I don't know which. :) It really wasn't like I was sitting on the computer typing, I just had the net meeting going while I went about my regular business...Laundry, snacks for Loryn, kitchen duties. I wasn't ignoring Loryn in anyway, in case you were wondering. In case you have not read earlier posts, Loryn was later diagnosed with Autism, but at 2 and 3 she was a VERY difficult , non-verbal toddler with significant developmental delays in speech and communication.
Benny would get off of work his time 4pm and would nap in order to be up at just before midnight Denmark time for our nightly chats. Weekends he spent at the KGB ( Kobenhaven Gokart Bane) where he worked as a youth school teacher, but he met me online and if net meeting was not working, he would look for me on ICQ or just send me an email. I remember one day, I bought a long distance phone card at Wal-Mart and called him out of the blue on his regular phone for the first time.

I was casually dating many local guys and would tell him of my dates he one day told me he really wished I would not date anyone else but him...EXCUSE ME?. That must had been in April, because one of the last dates I went on was with a guy that helped me with my taxes.
I told Benny I could not promise him that...for someone I had never met, But really, I don't think I went out on any dates after that...After all , all my time was spent talking to Benny.
He hinted around about the LONG vacation time he had available in the summer from his job at Phillips Electronics in Copenhagen. So I suggested that he come for a visit. After all, my parents were next door, so If he was a crazy stalker, I was well protected. So he planned to come to visit during his long summer vacation. By early May he had his tickets purchased to fly from Copenhagen to Lafayette, Louisiana. In his mind, he was coming to meet the woman that was going to be his wife. I on the other hand was still a bit jaded after a failed marriage and divorce...It took meeting him in person to convince me... after all, any thing else is just crazy, right?

By this time Loryn’s father had disappeared from her life, and I knew he would not be a father to her. She was a difficult toddler and had so many developmental delays. She eventually became so distraught when we did visitation exchange that my ex stopped visitation all together. He left the state with out a forwarding address.
Benny came over to visit and every one quickly fell in love with him, my parents and family thought he was wonderful. And he was so patient with Loryn. We became engaged and we discovered that it was easier to get married in Denmark and get a green card for Benny to move over to the USA. The Labor Day weekend in 1999 and Loryn and I moved to Denmark for 4 1/2 months. We were married at his childhood church on October 30, 1999. We moved back to my home in Jennings just before the turn of the millennium, 2000. I will blog about the time I spent in Denmark later.