Prince Charming

Once upon a time I didn't believe in happily ever after. I thought such things only existed in a writer's imagination, and even then you didn't always end up with a happy ending. Just look at Romeo and Juliet.

My apprehensions about the romanticism of relationships was born out of the fact that I thought I didn't know Prince Charming. I didn't see any men riding in on big, white mares clothed in shining armor to save the damsel in distress. The men I knew didn't ride horses. Their titles were not prince anything. They didn't live in castles and they didn't wield swords.

Then I had an epiphany, an awakening, a rebirth of the truth as I had known it. I was twenty-one and had just wrapped up my junior year at college. I was at home for the summer, working at an insurance company as a receptionist/file clerk/whatever you need me to be. I had also decided at the time that I was going to be an author. I was working on my first published work, and of all things it was a romance.

I had a lot of difficulty trying to create the story's hero because I was trying to fashion him after Cinderella's Prince Charming. His white mare was an expensive car and even though his title wasn't as lofty as prince, his job made him a lot of bank. He was going to ride in and save the day. Isn't that what romance is?

One day I was at the receptionist's desk working on my story when a woman walked in. There was nothing extraordinary about her. In fact I can't even remember what she looks like. She was just regular, every day ordinary. She had a two year old on her hip. I automatically made the assumption - single mother. Then she asked for Gordon. I didn't know exactly what Gordon did as I hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to him in the past. He walked with a limp and was not what I would have considered handsome. He, too, was just regular, every day ordinary.

I called Gordon and within a few minutes he made his way to the front. I looked up and the expression on his face made me pause. I followed his line of vision and it ended at the woman standing in front of me. I had never seen it before (or so I thought) but I recognized it right away - love.

I started to watch this man. I mean almost stalk him. He got into the office on time. He did his work with pride. He was a hard worker. He was kind, courteous, and respectful. He loved his wife and daughter with everything he had to love them with. Then it hit me. He was Prince Charming! And over the years I had met more Prince Charmings than I first thought.

My father is my Prince Charming. When I was a little girl I was

afraid to walk over those grates on the sidewalks, which was silly,

but he never said so. He would just pick me up and lift me over it. Every morning, and I mean every morning, my father would fix me, my sister and brother breakfast. He worked ridiculous hours so he could put us through private school and pay for our college tuition. We went on summer vacations every year. There has never been a time when I have asked my father for something and he has not given it to me. When I feel insecure his "you look nice"

makes me comfortable being who I am. Even as I type now

there are tears in my eyes because I was looking so hard for something false that I didn't realize that I was living with the truth.

It took me a long time to realize that my father was raised in poverty. He often tells a story about stepping on a nail while walking home from school. After hearing the story for maybe the hundredth time I asked him the all important question. "Why weren't you wearing any shoes?" His exasperated response was, "because we couldn't afford shoes". I say that to say that everything that my father has given us was because he worked his butt off for it. It's the equivalent of the prince slaying a dragon, and a poverty is a big dragon to slay.

I know a whole lot more Prince Charmings. I just didn't realize that their names weren't going to be Prince Charming. Instead I call them Daddy, Bishop, Uncle Mungy, Mr. Cameron, Pastor Ellis, Alkin, Mr. Staley, Uncle Oswald. These are men who have character, honor, and standards. Men who know how to love and how to sacrifice. Men who are not afraid to be scared or know that God is bigger than them. Men who don't have to cry in the dark because they cry in the Light. Men who would literally die for their families. Men who have created for me the definition of what manhood is, and who force me to keep my standards high.

The truth is that I now believe in once upon time and happily ever after because I know the hero in the story. I know Prince Charming and maybe you do too.