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Yesterday, I left the Best Western and drove to Helotes to see Elena's dance recital. Her class danced to only one song, but by the end of it, her daddy and I were both wiping away tears.

The song was "Have yourself a merry little Christmas," a song I will forever associate with the dancing of beautiful little girl, especially the dearest one to me, Elena.

She was graceful and gentle in her movements and the pure goodness of it all made me cry.  She ran to hug each of us in turn, Papi, her daddy, me, her mommy, and Tita.  Then she came back to give me a second hug: "I see your eyes are red," she said.  "Just overflowing with love for you," I told her.

Afterwards, her parents went to a dinner party for a friend and Elena and I went to El Chaparral's, still my favorite Mexican restaurant anywhere.  "This is a five-star restaurant for sure," she said, eating her puffy bean and cheese tacos while I devoured my spinach enchiladas.

I told Elena that El Chap used to be just the one room, across from the booth where we were sitting.  I told her how I used to put her daddy in a high chair there when he was a baby in blue seersucker overalls I'd made him.

Old soul Elena stroked the old wood and said, "Just imagine.  People you love might have touched this same wood before."

On the way home, she told me all about the elf on the shelf and how it had eaten all the gumdrops on hers and Nathan's gingerbread house, imagine that!

"What does he do after Christmas, this elf?" I asked.

"He goes back to the North Pole and tells Santa who's been good and who's been bad," she said.

"What do you think he says when Santa asks about you?"

"Well, it's kind of bumpy," she said.  "Sometimes Elena is really good and sometimes Elena can be bad.  But she tries really really hard to be good."

Then, driving down Scenic Loop to her house, the same Scenic Loop I've driven thousands of times when my own children were growing up, we passed the driveway where her other grandpa lives, where we all used to live, a driveway that evokes memories of decades but not the total joy and ease Elena feels heading toward her own driveway.

"If you're ever nervous when you're doing a performance," she said. "Just imagine that everyone in the audience is your family."

Profound words come from this little girl who still believes in elves and Santa and who is wrapped up tight in the love of her family, her parents, her brother, and the grandparents who came to watch her dance.

"If everyone could have that kind of love," I said to Will today, "There would be total peace on earth."