Who is Dominic Monte?

From Christy:

He’s the kind of guy it seems you either love him or hate him. We love him with all of our hearts.

Dominic and I met in an unconventional way at the time. I would have never believed I’d meet my husband in a cell phone chat room, but I did! It was January in 2003, the day after my son’s 3rd birthday. I went into the chat rooms on my Sprint cell phone to help pass the time at night; little did I know he was doing the same thing 400 miles away. I was using an alias of Nicole. I didn’t want anyone to know my real name because I wasn’t there to "meet" anyone.

The funny part about that is, if I had used my real name, Dom would have NEVER instant messaged me. His sister and I share names, so he would have avoided me at all costs. He used a shortened version of his name, Dom. When he requested a private chat with me he was actually looking for someone he knew by the name of Nicole. I almost denied his request, but changed my mind and accepted.

I think we only "chatted" for about 5 minutes before we couldn’t wait to talk and called each other. Sixteen hours later we said good night. The following night we talked for another eight hours. Needless to say, he got me, hook, line, and sinker; I was his.

We talked like this for the next two weeks, falling asleep to each other’s breath on the other end of the phone. I finally got the courage to go meet him, but this would mean me leaving my son with my parents, and driving alone four and a half hours from home. I remember thinking "you’re either really crazy or really stupid, or both." I didn’t really know this guy and I was going to be alone with him for the weekend, with no back up plan.

Turns out luck or God or both were on my side. After getting lost upon arriving in St. Petersburg and finding out I was only 4 blocks away I finally walked in his door. We had one of the best weekends of our lives. Two weeks later, shortly after Valentine’s Day my son and I moved in with him. Not only did he accept me for who I was but he also accepted my son, Joey, as his own.

We’ve been together ever since!

Every Halloween Dom would carve a Jack O Lantern with Joey. We loved the few times we got to go camping together. He even introduced my son and I to the Classic Rock band "Boston." Dom had followed them since he was nine years old. They had become a very big part of his life. We were able to go to a couple concerts with him, which made Joey fall in love with the drums. He plays air drum now to just about every song that has a good drum line in it.

Joey wants to be just like Dom, like I’m sure most boys want to be like their Dad. He tells me all the time he wants to lift weights so he can be strong like him. And Joey’s already trying to cook so he can be as good as his "Daddy."

We’ve become a real close family, so when we learned that he has cancer yet again, we all suffered with him.

-- Christy