Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Cinderella in Sweats

Anna says...

I have a book of fairy tales in my room. It contains about five different versions of Cinderella...Snow White...Beauty and the Beast. Do you know that almost every culture in the world has a variation of Cinderella? Some involving an 'ugly' and 'rude' prince....some with a vindictive fairy godmother. Some even with nice and supportive stepsisters. There's one similarity in all versions though...you guessed it the prince and Cinderella always make it in the end (okay, minus the Russian version where the prince never ends up finding her).

I have a love story to share with you...it begins in a small village in India...

There was once a man. I short man. A short brown man. He lived in a very small village in southern India in the late 1950s. He was smart and adventurous. So he decided that it was time for leave his small village and try something a little different...

He got on a boat and sailed for days and days. He got sick several times. Fever. Chills. Sweats. Vomiting. He didn't think that he would be able to make it. But finally...he arrived on the eastern coast of the United States.

He ended up in Illinois where he took odd jobs to pay tuition. Times were tough. The U.S. in the 1950s really wasn't the best place to be for a minorities.

One day, while working for a family he met a woman. She was innocent. Religious. Came from a very conservative family. They got to talking. Realized that they had a lot in common...eventually this blossomed into love.

He decided to propose. She accepted. After telling her family, they were staunchly opposed. It was too much.

So, he left. He scrawled his address in India on a small piece of paper and gave it to her. He was gone.

She decided that he was it. It didn't matter what anyone said because she knew...he was the one for her. So, she got on a boat. Got on a train. Got on an auto and found him. They got married and they've been together for over 40 years.

Pure love exists. This story of my great uncle proves it to me everyday.

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