our love was greater than an ocean apart...

This is the story of how an online friendship between an Irish guy and a West Virginia girl led to love and marriage.

Victoria had joined a mailing list I was on in May 1999. We had a lot in common and flirted on the list, going as far as almost getting married online! Our friendship grew more intimate in August, when we began confiding in each other about hurtful relationships we'd been in. We revealed deep secrets to each other, and Vic helped cheer me up during some bad times. The phone calls began in September I think, though we weren't as honest and deep in speech as we were through email. That changed on November 4th, when we 'really' talked, and when I told her (and finally admitted to myself) just how much I cared about her, concluding with 'and I love you.'

After an excruciating silence, my best friend uttered the immortal words 'What the hell, I love you too.' And so, us was born.

The next few months were difficult as I tried not to feel for Vic, thinking I knew how difficult it would be to be with her, and as I occasionally returned to my pathetic wallowing. But being us was great, just breathing together over a phone line made me feel ecstatic. We exchanged up to 8 emails a day, spent hours together by phone, or using the Internet phone program 'Buddyphone'. Once I read her to sleep - reading Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. Romantic, huh?!

We also exchanged tapes, photos and more. I think the eventual total of tapes I sent her was approximately 30 - music, 'talktapes', and recordings from the radio studio in which I worked. I was spending all my free time with Victoria, even though she was over 6000 miles away, and I was happier than I'd ever been.

We decided we couldn't meet till November 2000, then I thought I might be able to make it in May, but as our relationship grew stronger we couldn't wait that long and eventually decide to meet in March.

In January, I Iost my job at the radio station, and began working at a local grocery store called Super Valu. I later found out that Vic had also worked at a Super Valu. Anyway, I wasn't fun around that time. I was tired and grouchy a lot. I was tired in general of the town I lived in. So, when in February Vic's sister found out about us, and my baby needed me, I got return tickets departing the following week, and decided to quit Super Valu, leave Trim, and move my stuff to my parents house. It was time for a change, though I had no idea how much change there would be!

On Valentines Day 2000, I flew to Charleston, West Virginia, to meet my best friend and my destiny.

Meanwhile Victoria had been going through a very difficult time. She and her family were Jehovah's Witnesses, so when her sister found out about us she was under tremendous pressure to let me go, including a meeting the night before I came with elders from the local congregation who quoted many scriptures and assured her I was sent by Satan, or that I was a pimp, or something.

I landed at Yeager Airport hours late. Victoria had been there for 8 hours, having left home early afraid that somehow her family would stop her from meeting me. She had basically been told that if she met me, she wouldn't be welcome back on her family's property where she had been living in an apartment adjoining her sister's house.

So we had to stay in a motel together. After a slightly awkward meeting during which we held each other a lot, and I kissed her too soon, we got a taxi to the Ivy Terrace Motel which became our home for a few weeks.

Memories of the first 10 days are a little blurred. We ate at Burger King a lot, there were many tearful phone calls between Vic and her family. I remember that the first couple of days were a little awkward, and I was even thinking of returning to Ireland, but on the third day we clicked. Finally we felt as comfortable with each other in person as we had online.

There was a lot of agonizing about what to do. Our staying together at the motel was a big problem for her family and friends in the religion, because whether anything sexual happened or not, for unmarried people to be living together like that was considered misconduct. It would eventually lead to her being disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witness community. We also realized that staying in the same country would be a problem for us unless we were married. And watching the Jerry Springer Show made me realize how lucky I was to have found a beautiful, intelligent woman with common interests who not only accepted me, but loved me. And I realized how much I loved her and wanted her in my life. I proposed marriage. In a typically romantic way.

"Lets get married then. No, really!"

Spending our first night apart since we'd met strengthened our resolve, so the next day, on February 24th, we set out to get a marriage license. We got off at the wrong bus stop, walked 2 miles to the courthouse, got the license, crossed the street to the Judicial Annex, found Judge Todd Kauffman, engaged in a conversation about how similar the Irish are to the Amish, and said 'I will' in front of his crying secretary.

Mr and Mrs McCabe then went to the Town Center mall where we ate food from McDonalds and Taco Bell respectively, and visited the Trans Allegheny bookstore where I bought our memento of the day - an old Elvis record. We returned home to our quaint motel room and danced to our wedding song - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack.

I was now allowed on the family property, and enjoyed seeing the place where Vic had spent so much time with me, enjoyed the music, books and movies I'd heard so much about, and of course experiencing her water bed at last. I slowly got to know her family, and after a few weeks felt like part of it. Vic's niece said it was like having two of her, and her mother was 'tickled' by me.

My mother was shocked when I told her, and terrified that marrying Vic automatically made me a 'Jehova'. She was slightly consoled by the promise we'd made that we would return to Ireland together, a promise we came to regret.

We flew to Ireland in April, and waited for my brother to pick us up at Dublin Airport. He arrived an hour late, being typically loud and vulgar, and drove like a madman after taking a wrong turn making the journey to our mother's house last twice as long as it should have. Not the best introduction to Ireland for my new wife. It didn't get better. My mother greeted us with a greasy Irish breakfast, then decided to introduce my other brother to Victoria by barging in on us when we were in bed. There were few good times while we stayed there - walks in the Irish countryside, going to the cinema and bookstores in Dublin, a wonderful day in Glendalough, sharing my past with Vic by showing her my 'memory box' - stuff I'd kept over many years, and by letting her read my many journals.

Some of the worst experiences included a meeting my mother organized with an anti-cult group called Dialogue Ireland. My mother insists that she just wanted to learn more about the religion, but she refused to listen to anything we said about it and instead subjected Victoria to personal questions from hostile strangers. The situation got worse resulting in my mother yelling at us and Victoria being miserable.

We tried to get out, spending a horrible weekend in Waterford and a week in Dublin before deciding we couldn't live in either place. Eventually it became evident that we wouldn't be happy in Ireland, so we accepted the offer of online friends to stay with them while I worked in England to earn the plane fare back to West Virginia.

In June, after two weeks in England, I began working for a recruitment agency in a laundry factory. I worked nights a lot and had to travel over an hour to and from the factory. Good times in England included nights out at a karaoke bar where I serenaded Victoria. Travel and food was more expensive than we'd planned for so eventually we had to ask Vic's mother to help us pay for the plane tickets. Communication difficulties led to major problems with our hosts, and it was a relief to return to Ireland briefly early in September.

A week later we set off for the airport, had no problems in Dublin, but had to go through immigration at Shannon airport. The grumpy old man there told me, among other things, that I should have a proper wallet, and that he didn't believe I'd left America in April. He then made me wait outside an INS inspector's office. I was terrified that I wouldn't be allowed leave the country, but finally, after Vic confirmed that I was her husband, and after producing a receipt for the visa application we'd filed at the US embassy in Dublin, my passport was stamped and I got back on the plane to the land of the free.

We arrived back to a tearful reunion with Vic's family, after a hellish journey through customs during which we had our baggage cart stolen and Vic's coat got left behind. The next day we attended a JW assembly, which was pretty boring. For the first few weeks we slept on mattresses on the floor of Vic's mom's bedroom, while she slept on the couch. We were living with her mom, her grandmother, and a yappy dog in a four-room trailer. Not the ideal living arrangement, but oh well!

Vic found work soon afterwards, through her temp agency. Then good things started happening. We learned that she would be hired permanently by the company she was working for as a receptionist, and a friend's grandmother moved to Georgia and offered us her house to rent. So after just a few weeks, we had our own place with pretty much everything we needed, and Vic was making enough money to keep us going.

I started working for a telemarketing company within a week of becoming a legal residentin June 2001, and later moved into their customer service department. I also worked for a local radio station for about a year, finally realizing my ambition of being an on-air deejay. Since then I've worked in a Grocery store and for a slightly less annoying call center, with Ticketmaster. I eventually put that ring on Vic's finger at a Faith Hill/Tim McGraw concert in November 2000. 'I Will Love You' was the first song Vic sent me, and on our first anniversary we got to see Fisher in concert and have the song dedicated to us. Among the many musical acts we've seen in concert together since then are Natalie Merchant, Joan Osborne, Norah Jones, Tori Amos and Ani Difranco.

In October 2003, we finally had our first vacation alone together, in Wilmington NC. It was a blissful time and we want to go back. In Summer 2004, I had my final INS interview and my conditions were removed, so I can now proudly boast of being a legal alien. Yay. Now, we approach our 5th anniversary, and I continue to be amazed by our relationship. The following song was played on the radio a lot when we met and even followed us accross the ocean to Ireland. I think it's a fitting way to conclude our story for now...

Amazed

Every time our eyes meet
This feeling inside me
Is almost more than I can take
Baby when you touch me
I can feel how much you love me
And it just blows me away
I've never been this close to anyone or anything
I can hear your thoughts
I can see your dreams

I don't know how you do what you do
I'm so in love with you
It just keeps getting better
I want to spend the rest of my life
With you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby, I'm amazed by you

The smell of your skin
The taste of your kiss
The way you whisper in the dark
Your hair all around me
Baby you surround me
You touch every place in my heart
Oh, it feels like the first time, every time
I want to spend the whole night in your eyes

Every little thing that you do
I'm so in love with you
It just keeps getting better
I want to spend the rest of my life
With you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby, I'm amazed by you