Rob sent me email number 500 this afternoon. At number 499 he asked me if I wanted anything special included in the next one. I replied that I wanted “just you” because I haven’t seen him since he and his younger daughter, Mick, left for the airport very early on the Monday after Easter. Though that is only 18 days ago, there is no “only” when you are apart from the man you love. His reply, #500, was “short and sweet” and included a photo he had taken of himself with his cellphone camera in the parking lot of the plant where he works. He had taken my request literally. The photo was captioned “just me”.

500 emails. And those are just the ones he has sent to me. You might ask, “He counts the number of emails he sends you?” He’s an engineer but in his defense, I started it. The counting, I mean. I think I mentioned it in a post to the YWBB board in a futile attempt to explain, yet again, that it is possible to get to know someone via email/letters and as an example recounted the number of messages we had already sent each other. That will teach me to start a quantifying contest with someone who has a latent Dilbert streak in him.

I will be a little sad when the daily emails stop. They have become an integral part of my day. But I am ready to trade my morning greeting on the computer screen for strong arms around me, soft kisses and a fuzzy chest to lay my head.