The Enchanted Cottage

What I hear about mostly is love.

About two months ago, I was in Philadelphia and talking to my older daughter who lives in San Francisco. Two kids and fulltime job keep her busy; that day, she was unusually stressed. She was driving to a friend’s house and she’d used the long drive as an opportunity to call me. I started bubbling over with my most recent interview. The man was 79; his wife of one year was 80. They kept stroking each others’ arms and caressing each others’ cheeks as we talked. After an hour, the woman said to me, “Did you ever see the movie The Enchanted Cottage? (I had, it’s about a disfigured man and woman who end up falling in love and the cottage they inhabit that magically makes them beautiful to each other.)

“We’re old,” said the woman. “You know? But when we go inside our house, it’s like The Enchanted Cottage. We feel 16 years old. We laugh, we play. We love each other so much, we really forget…”

“Wow. I needed to hear that today, Mom,” my daughter said.

It was like the woman who’d told me about The Enchanted Cottage had given me a gift and I had just passed the gift on to my daughter. And it was only recently (not being the most computer-savvy person) did I understand the power of blogs to share the same gift with lots and lots of people.