My very good friend Diane, who was pursuing her Master's in Creative Writing at the time, wrote this story for publication in a local magazine. It is the story of how Bruce and I met and fell in love.

***The story you are about to read is true, and no names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Do You Believe In Fairies?
by Diane Batts
October 7, 2006

Every little girl dreams of the fairy tale. Someday, we believe, someday our prince will come. By the time we've reached our twenties or thirties though, we think that Prince Charming is: dead, gay, or imprisoned by some evil power somewhere. Because, dear readers, 99.8% of the men we've met have definitely not been of his caliber.

This combination of image and text are the results of collaborations between class participants and guest poets at the University of Louisville, KY.

Our own Auntie Di wrote the text here, and artist Jeanette Brown contributed the image.

I recently had a friend tell me about the infinite power of God and the capacity of His love for us. This was not a new concept for me. I'd heard it from the time I was knee high to a grasshopper, both from my mom, and from church. However, at this point in my life, I wanted to try and sort out what that concept truly meant, not just give it the nod and the smile I used to while I moved on with my life.

We love lots of people, if we are lucky, in lots of different ways. I was reminded of that today as I looked at my mother on her birthday.

It is hard for me, the spewer of too many words at times, to find the language to express how much she means to me. I look at her and plenty of words of description spring to mind: strong, tall, beautiful, kind, saintly, underappreciated, overworked, vivacious, shy, tough, brunette, olive skinned, generous, ample bosomed, bare footed, ingenious, strong-willed, mother, dutiful daughter, supportive sister...the list could go on forever. However, to explain the love I have for her ties my verbage into knots.