“She lived north of the border. We met online. She told me she cared immensely and that she was gonna be my sister in God, and in life.

“I noticed that every time I turned around she would shower me with ‘I love you’’s. It seemed so natural for her, like second nature to utter those three little words…and to blow countless muahz’s my way.

“Then one cold spring evening, the sky turned dark and gloomy. The holdover wintry temps and falling snow – even as the calendar said April – were a sure sign that things had gone awry for us too…and that a coolness and frigidity had taken over.

“Now, the kisses are no more. The ‘I love you’’s have melted faster than a snow cone on a hot sticky summer day.

“Chalk it all up as another bend along the road. Ahhh…but life must go on.

“There’ll be others like her who will come and go. But maybe, just maybe, someday the love will be real and the kisses more than superfluous and meaningless.

“All I wanted was a genuine friend and sister, someone to love and to be around for, and to be with the day she walked down the aisle with the man of her dreams.”