I met Suzie on Match.com and began dating her not too long after PFB's visit there (of whom she had nothing but nice things to say, btw). We dated a couple of months, several times going out with one of her close girlfriends. Things wound down after a while and we broke things off completely in December. Nothing dramatic or anything, we just weren't right for the long haul.
I'll echo PFB regarding Susie being an extremely trusting-- and KIND person. She told me once about how she had several conversations with a homeless man she would bump into on the VCU campus. I told her to be careful and she said something like, "He just needs someone to listen to him and show him some compassion." THAT is exactly who she was-- incredibly kind, fearless (maybe to a fault) and with a positivity and goodness that I couldn't even come close to keeping up with.
PFB is correct about the early morning runs with not even a cell-phone. I talked to her several times about that, urging her to carry something-- ANYTHING-- or at least not run by the river which, in some areas, can be a sketchy place even in mid-afternoon. She said nothing bad would happen to her because she didn't put that out into the Universe. I wish that had been the case...
Anyway, I don't really follow local news, and only learned of this recently, when the topic of a murder on Tanglewood came up on a local neighborhood crime thread. I saw the street name and was wondering if maybe it was near Suzie's house. Sadly, all too near.
Suzie and I messaged quite a bit over those couple of months-- text, Facebook, and of course, Match, and we spent time with her friend at concerts, dinner, etc. I guess the police are super certain in their person of interest because they must have all kinds of records of our relationship, but no one ever contacted me. Had I not seen that one thread, I wouldn't even know about it.
I check every day now to see if they are going say something-- anything. I don't know if I will feel better if it was random or if it was someone she knew or had recently met. All I know is it makes me sick to my stomach. She was a truly bright light, a loving mom, and a doting "Gigi" to her grandsons. I am glad to have known her and to have spent time with her and I hate it that some animal took her from the world.
