One of the best nights of my life

Katie was five years old, in kindergarden and I was taking our dog Pongo out for his last walk of the night. It was a cold January night and she was standing at the back door waiting for us to come in. Unbeknowst to me, she had put on her coat and she ran outside to me.


"Mommy, can we watch for shooting stars?" I was tired and wanted to go to bed, but couldn't say no to her innocent bright eyes. I remember thinking it might be a long wait before we see a shooting star. Reminding myself that I didn't want to squelch her exuberance I said "yes we can sweetie."


She threw herself down on the ground, I laid down next to her - our heads were touching, our bodies sticking out in a right angle to each other. Our dalmatian Pongo followed suit. We could see our breath in the night air, the outline of the tree tops, a beautiful deep, blue night sky and the stars that night seemed to sparkle so bright just for us. The longer we laid there our eyes adjusted to the dark and the brightness of the stars. Cars would come by and we would lay there stock still as the headlights grazed over us. I can only imagine what they were thinking. We giggled at the thought. We got lost in conversation and I finally said "I don't think it's the night for shooting stars."


"Mommy," she said, "you have to believe."


Not five minutes later, a shooting star streaked across the horizon - my heart jumped and as we laid there in a right angle holding hands - she squeezed my hand in excitement - we both let out a gasp. I will never forget that squeeze! "I told you Mommy." "Yes, you did sweet girl, yes you did."


Another star whizzed by, then another...how did she know?


I will never forget that night, we laughed, we held hands, our dog did a happy dance around us. I marveled at the wonderment of a girl of five believing in the stars. It was a perfect night, in fact one of the best nights of my life.

About this photo - I don't have a real photo of this night, but this is the closest I could find to capturing the outline of the trees and the color of the January sky. That night the stars danced just for us.