Last week, I shared the inspiring true love story of one Cathy Gore and Dave Jones. As a writer, I am most often drawn to stories that encompass the most human of moments and emotions--the failures and triumphs, the unadulterated joy and incomparable heartbreaks. And, in the process of retelling these narratives, like fairy tales come to life off their pages, I've been swayed and touched, moved to tears of sweetness and joy.

I met the protagonist of our little love tale one sultry July day. It was the summer of 2017, a month or so after Dave Jones passed away. I met her while my mother and I attended Jazz on the Green, an Omaha ritual that marks the lengthening of days, celebrated with the opening of wine bottles. Cathy was a friend of my mother's; they met at work.

She sat in a folding chair alongside her son, Danny, and daughter, Piper. They were atop a wool picnic blanket. The first thing that struck me was her smile: it was the kind of smile built over the years with a certain depth behind it, a smile whose joy can shine through so ever brightly because of the pain she endured. The second aspect about Cathy Gore that struck me was her embrace. It was less of a hug from a parent's work acquaintance and more of a physical translation of love that can only be imparted by two arms.

Cathy no longer works with my mother. She has moved onto a job with a radio station, where she now feels more fulfilled. She is happily engaged to a man she's known since grade school. For her, there is not time to wait for life to start anew and she will not settle for an unhappy ending. After all, fairy tales don't always end with "The end."

My mom still adores Cathy as a friend. Like Dave, she was drawn to her for her radiant happiness and unending love. Perhaps an example of the complex interweaving of coincidence or divine intervention, my mother actually has the same birthday as Cathy's older brother, Danny--day, month and year. Of all of Cathy's friends at work who knew the loss she was feeling, my mom was the only one in attendance at her funeral. My mother's account of this tale of woe and love caught my attention and I, too, wanted to share it.

I never met Dave Jones. I've seen pictures of him and, from the heartfelt interview I conducted with Cathy, I feel that I've gotten a sense of him. I can see the love in his eyes in the photographs she's shared with me. I can feel his presence lingering between the lines of text I write, a friend I never got the chance to meet.

Cathy still lives in Missouri Valley. I live in Minneapolis, some 15 minutes away from where Dave spent more than a decade of his life. Through my mother, I was able to set up a phone interview with Cathy. The conversation lasted two and a half hours. I took twelve pages of notes. I laughed and cried. So did Cathy.

But, I sat on the notes for a good couple of weeks. This is the sort of story where the pressure builds and builds for the writer. There is a personal connection between the author and the story's subjects, and it's just so heartfelt and sensitive that the author feels that no amount of research, words or time could do it justice. But I tried and hope I did it some good. I hope that for Cathy and her family, it was healing. I hope for readers who may have no connection to this story's subjects that it was engaging and enthralling. It certainly was for me.

So, in the two or three weeks that I let the answers to the questions I asked Cathy marinate on a Google Document, I turned to inspiration. I visited the St. Paul Cathedral, the landmark of the St. Paul skyline. I had never been but had always longed to go. Ironically enough, I went there after brunch on a first date. I do not know if that love story will continue from there as it did for Cathy and Dave or to what extent. I suppose, at the time when they were there, they did not know either.

But, what I do know is that I can imagine seeing a heartbroken man sitting next to a woman overflowing with love in a back pew. I know that, on my visit, there sat a replica of Michelangelo's Pietà, the virgin Mary clutching her son and the savior of man after he had been crucified. Under her cool, Carrara gaze, I lit a candle in silent prayer for the man I had come to know in story alone, under the virgin mother Mary, that Christian symbol of redemption.