Ever After

Ever After
Written and Illustrated By

Nancy Johnson

For Paul,
who can make beautiful things grow in the most barren places

From Nancy,
who delights in the beauty of their lives

When Paul was six years old, he got to go to school for the very first time. His six older brothers and sisters all went to school every weekday. He had watched them all leave the house each morning and get on the big yellow school bus with its blinking lights. While they were gone, he would help his mom around the house.

There were a lot of children in his family. Counting his older brothers and sisters, with Paul makes seven. But there were also five more children at home, waiting to go to school too. In all, there were twelve children in Paul’s family. Twelve children make a lot of messes – dirty dishes, dirty clothes and a dirty house. Paul liked helping his mom, because he knew it made her happy. Making his Mom happy made Paul happy.

But now Paul would be leaving his Mom and five little brothers and sisters at home to go to school each weekday. He hoped that he had been a good example to his younger brother and that he would help his Mom while Paul was at school. He was excited to be growing bigger. He already did so many grown-up things, like baking cookies and dusting the furniture, sorting dirty laundry and folding clean clothes, mowing the grass and planting a garden.

He even had a dream that the Lord’s prophet would give him a special call to be the youngest boy ever to get married. Maybe he would meet a new little girl in his new school.



 Nancy was also six years old. Like Paul, she also had a lot of brothers and sisters. While her five older brothers and sisters were at school, she loved being little and being home with her mom and two younger brothers. She played with her dolls inside – making sure they were well fed and warm in their beds. She colored in her coloring books and played office, using the big desk that her dad built. She even liked playing with cars and trucks with her younger brothers, building roads in the dirt outside. The twins that lived nearby were two years older than she was and had told her scary stories about going to school. Nancy believed those stores and was very much afraid to grow up and go off to school. She didn’t know about the exciting things awaiting her there.

On the first day of school, Paul was excited to join his older brothers and sisters, waiting for the big yellow bus to pull in front of their home. Finally, there it was turning the corner onto their street. Paul’s tummy felt like there were butterflies flapping their wings all around inside. It was a big step up and, then one, two, three, he was on the bus and choosing a seat.

He sat by a little girl with big brown eyes that looked up into his sparkling blue ones. He saw that her chin-length hair had just enough curl to make it go wildly in every direction. He liked that. They rode, side-by-side, without talking to each for the next block and then Paul noticed that the little girl seamed very scared. So, he turned to her and said with the biggest smile he could muster, “Hi, I’m Paul, what’s your name?” She replied very timidly, “My name is Nancy.”

What was it about this little boy with the beautiful blue eyes and hair the color of a sandy beach that made her feel so relaxed and safe? She wanted to know more about him, so she asked lots of questions. Paul knew lots of things to talk about. He made her giggle. Giggling made the butterflies in her tummy fly away. Suddenly, going to school seemed so much more fun. Paul and Nancy talked all the way to school that first day. They both felt like they had known each other for a long time. For Nancy, it was like being safe at home again.

At school, Nancy was so happy to find that Paul was in her first grade class. They got in trouble that very first day for talking when they should have been listening to their teacher. It was so hard not to talk to each other, when there was so much to talk about.

At recess, they played hide and seek all around the playground. Paul was good at finding the best hiding spots. They played hopscotch on the hard pavement. Nancy was good at balancing on one leg and at throwing the hoppy taw just right, inside each square. At lunch, they sat side-by-side, while they talked and giggled and ate their peanut butter and jam sandwiches.

On the way home on the big yellow school bus, it had been a day full of fun and adventure and learning. Nancy laid her head on Paul’s shoulder. They were too tired to talk, so they whispered softly to each other. Just before the bus pulled in front of Paul’s house, he said, “You’re my best friend.” She replied, “And you’re my best friend, forever.”

They were true to their promise to be best friends. At school, Nancy helped Paul with learning how to spell, because she was good at spelling.

Paul helped Nancy learn to draw beautiful pictures for art class, because Paul was very good at drawing. Sometimes after school, they played at each other’s houses. And always, during the summer they spent every day together.

Paul and Nancy loved being outside and having wild imaginative adventures all around their neighborhood. They built tree forts, where they were safe from wild animals and indians. They played in streams, where they discovered sea monsters guarding shiny diamonds. They rode on a rocket ship, soaring high in the sky on the big rope swing in Nancy’s backyard.

Sometimes, they played inside where Nancy’s mom would give them leftover pie dough. They would shape the dough with their fingers, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, and make their own special pies. They painted pictures of their adventures with watercolors. They made musical instruments out of old boxes, rubber bands and cardboard tubes for a parade that they would march in around the yard.

Paul’s family owned a cabin high in the mountains and sometimes they would take Nancy with them on the hour-long drive up winding roads to the tiny cabin surrounded by quaking aspens. There were several lakes near the cabin and Paul and Nancy and his brothers and sisters loved to hike through the forests and swim in the cold mountain waters of the lakes. The mountain seemed alive as the quaking aspen shimmered beneath the brilliant sun.

Each year, their bodies grew taller and their friendship grew stronger. One spring day, when Paul and Nancy were twelve years old, Paul brought over some flower seeds that he’d ordered from a catalogue. “I want to plant us a flower garden, he said,” “That way, when you see the flowers blooming and growing bigger each year, it will be like us and how our friendship has grown.” So Paul and Nancy found a sunny spot in her front yard along the sidewalk. Paul used a shovel and tilled the rich, brown soil and then, working side-by-side, they placed the seeds in the earth. They watered the seeds, then leaned against the trunk of a shady maple tree.

They talked quietly about the future of the little seeds that they’d just planted and the things they wanted to do as they grew older. Suddenly, Paul said “Hey!” when Nancy put a squiggly worm on his head. He teasingly tossed it toward her and in an attempt to dodge it, she fell backward onto the soft green grass, laughing. He reached over and started tickling her as they both erupted into laughter. “You’re my best friend, you Cutie Beauty Girl, which was what he’d taken to calling her recently. “And you’re my best friend, forever, she replied.

That summer, the seeds that they’d planted blossomed into a beautiful garden that bloomed continuously until a November snowstorm sent them to bed to sleep throughout the winter until the next spring. There were many more springs and as Paul and Nancy became teenagers, Nancy earned money babysitting while Paul worked in his family’s drapery business. They enjoyed serving in church callings and always helping their large families with never-ending house and yard work. When they were both 16, they got their drivers’ license and began dating. They went on hikes in the mountains and walks around their neighborhood; they went to the movies and to museums. The flower garden that they’d planted in Nancy’s front yard grew and their friendship, which had always been love, grew too.

And when Paul left for two years to serve a mission for the Lord’s church, Nancy thought her heart would break. But she cherished their love and the beautiful memories that were like flowers that they had planted in her heart. As two years passed by, she wrote to Paul and shared with him her love and the joy of the garden that they’d planted together. He wrote back, sharing with her the beauty of Seattle and its people, and the joys he experienced serving the Lord on a mission. And very soon he was home again.

On a warm summer evening, sitting on a fallen tree, in the quiet of a secluded park, Paul asked Nancy to be with him for all eternity with one hundred flowers and one hundred reasons why he loved her.

On a beautiful morning in late summer, with the sky as blue as Paul’s eyes, they sealed their love for all eternity in the Washington DC temple. With each dream, they had planted a seed - which blossomed under their love and grew into a family.

I love you Paul, my very best friend, forever.