This is a fairy tale, but not a tale of long ago or far away.

It’s the story of a middle-aged woman who lived alone with a dog and a cat for many years on an old hill farm in western Maine. She lived alone not by choice but by circumstance. She had many friends and a busy life and was not unhappy. But something was missing.

No, she did not try Internet dating services. She had this old-fashioned idea that if it were right, something would happen. So, the years went by.

Until recently.

This, of course, is my story. But it is a remarkable story, magic as a fairy tale.

It began last fall, at the Common Ground Fair. I’d stopped into the booth of a wood-turner buddy for a long chat. Behind me, I heard a familiar voice and looked up. It was Donn, who I hadn’t seen since his wife’s memorial service the year before. He was there with his two best friends, drawn to the fair by their commitment to farming. We hugged and began talking. Knowing my interest in spinning, he invited me to come visit his sheep. He sounded so welcoming and enthusiastic, I couldn’t resist.

It was a little bit of a Mars/Venus thing: I was thinking he meant, “Wow, here’s Sandy. I’d really like to see her.” Instead it was more of a guy thing. He was thinking “Wow, here’s a woman I sort of know. I haven’t talked to a woman in months!”

I took up the invitation and visited the sheep and the cows and the chickens, and toured the small farm. Both my folks grew up on farms and my sister and her family run a dairy farm in Wisconsin, so I was right at home.

Next, knowing Donn is something of a gourmet, I invited him to my house to help cook a chicken dinner. We went over the ingredients, and I got them together. But when Donn arrived and discovered I had curly parsley, not flat Italian parsley (clearly the choice of sophisticated palates), I thought I’d blown it completely and it was only our second date.

Now, we laugh about parsley a lot. In the garden this summer, we will grow both kinds.

We wondered a bit if we had enough in common, beyond parsley. He is good with machines and tools. I’m a reader. I care about politics and the state of the world. He watches the nightly news as a disinterested observer. I like girl movies. He likes chases and action.

But we’re grown ups, and have learned something about taking the other person as they are. The attraction grew fast, but we were willing to let things unfold. Trust grew. One day I asked him, “How did we get to be so comfortable with each other so soon?”

Then I got sick. Very sick. When the diagnosis came of terminal cancer, I hated to tell Donn.

Two years before, after many years together, he and my friend Peggy decided to get married under the care of the Farmington Quaker meeting, which we both attended. It was a joyous event. My son was the official photographer and I was his assistant. Their family and friends were all there and couldn’t have been happier for them.

Then a few weeks later, Peggy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We all went from being very happy to very sad. She died a year later.

So when I discovered my breast cancer had returned, I said to Donn, “You don’t have to do this. It’s a lot to ask and you’ve just been through it. You should think about it first.”

But he said without hesitation, “I’m not scared of this. And I’m not going to abandon you.”

He hasn’t. He’s been with me every day. He took me home because, sick and alone and scared, I couldn’t have taken care of my place. He is the tenderest of nurses, anticipating all my needs. I’d like to do things for him, but he’s very independent and there’s not a lot I can do right now anyway. He says, “You make me happy. That’s enough.”

So I am a fortunate and deeply happy woman. I have learned the meaning of one day at a time. Yes, it’s scary and I worry about things I shouldn’t, but I know that the truth is in each moment, not the past or the future.

Neither of us knows how long I have. I have responded remarkably to a difficult treatment and am continuing with chemotherapy which could buy me an easy stretch of time. Or, the cancer could move into another organ and cut everything short.

Still, as in a fairy tale, I have found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. And I will: It will be a shorter life than I originally hoped, but every moment will count.