Happily Ever After

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not so far away, there was a woman. Just a regular woman, like you might pass in the grocery store or run into at PTA. (Except that she was never good about going to PTA.) Still, what matters to the story is that there was this ordinary woman, and she believed in True Love and Dreams and Walks in the Rain. So she walked in the rain with her little boys, and dreamed of her True Love but she always woke up before she could reach out and touch him. And that's how she thought life should be. She was just an ordinary woman, after all.

Then, one day, a man rode into her life. He wasn't a prince and he didn't have a white horse; he had a black and red pickup. (Black body, red hood, long story.) He was a middle-aged man with a crooked grin and calloused hands from years of playing bass guitar. The moment she saw him, the woman fell in love.

They were married and added to each other's world sons, daughters-in-law, granddaughters and dogs. The man brought her roses and sang to her and rubbed her shoulders when she got tired. He learned to cook her favorite foods. She learned to pronounce things in his native Texas accent just to hear him laugh.

But you know that part in the stories about riding off into the sunset? They don't mention that sometimes only one of you does. One February 20, the man crossed into the sunset, and for a moment the whole universe stopped.

This ordinary woman still finds comfort in the rain. Sometimes the man walks through her dreams and when she wakes up, she remembers what it was like to hold him. And she found out that it isn't about how long you have Happily Ever After for. It's that you have it at all.