Last week my family and I attended a recital for my 7-year-old granddaughter, Ryleigh.

All week she had been practicing her dance moves getting ready for the big event, we all watched as she danced to no music. To us, it seemed as though she was making the dance up as she went, boy were we wrong.

As she marched out onto the dance floor dressed in her snowman outfit grinning from ear to ear (and so were we), she did not miss a beat to the music and did a perfect cartwheel to boot.

A cartwheel is something that does not come easily for Ryleigh and her long legs. Later, she returned to the stage dressed in a rag doll outfit, again dancing to perfection (according to Mawmaw), but it wasn’t until the end of the recital that my proudest moment came.

The older dancers were throwing stuffed animals to the little girls that had performed. Ryleigh got a white teddy bear, but the little girl behind her had not gotten one. So, Ryleigh gave her hers. Ryleigh then was thrown another teddy bear, this one was pale blue. But then a little girl who was a member of the audience started to cry because she had not gotten a stuffed animal and our blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel gave that little girl, who she did not know, that pale-blue teddy bear.

It was at that moment I was the proudest grandparent in the room, not only for the great dance performance she put on, but for the love and giving Ryleigh showed so unselfishly.

Ryleigh, that is the true meaning of Christmas, and not only to me, but your whole family, is very proud of you.

Angie Weeks

Vidalia resident