[00:00.53]4.Dance with Me
[00:04.67]When we’re young and we dream of love and fulfillment,
[00:08.92]we think perhaps of moon-drenched Parisian nights or walks along the beach at sunset.
[00:15.56]No one tells us that the greatest moments of a lifetime are fleeting, unplanned and nearly always catch us off guard.
[00:24.71]Not long ago, as I was reading a bedtime story to my seven-year-old daughter, Annie, I became aware of her focused gaze.
[00:33.63]She was starring at me with a faraway, trancelike expression.
[00:39.73]Apparently, completing The Tale of Samuel Whiskers was not as important as we first thought.
[00:47.47]I asked what she was thinking about.
[00:50.84]“Mommy,” she whispered, “I just can’t stop looking at your pretty face.”
[00:58.46]I almost dissolved on the spot.
[01:02.71]Little did she know how many trying moments the glow of her sincerely loving statement would carry me through over the following years.
[01:13.49]Not long after, I took my four-year-old son to an elegant department store,
[01:19.04]where the melodic notes of a classic love song drew us toward a tuxedoed musician playing a grand piano.
[01:26.45]Sam and I sat down on a marble bench nearby, and he seemed as transfixed by the lilting theme as I was.
[01:34.40]I didn’t realize that Sam had stood up next to me until he turned, took my face in his little hands and said,
[01:42.02]“Dance with me.”
[01:44.31]If only those women strolling under the Paris moon knew the joy of such an invitation made by a round-cheeked boy with baby teeth.
[01:54.38]Although shoppers openly chuckled, grinned and pointed at us as we glided and whirled around the open atrium,
[02:02.91]I would not have traded a dance with such a charming young gentleman if I’d been offered the universe.
