A couple of cruises ago, I found myself alone one evening on one of the top decks. It was sunsetish, casting an orange half-light, half-dark hue across everything. The rest of the bunch, including Pam, had split off into a number of subgroups and I was walking around the ship in hopes of finding some of them.

The DJ by the main pool was playing some slow ballady song that caught my ear. A male singer sang of meeting a girl when they were both kids how they fell in love.

After a couple of verses, he sang of being older and falling in love as adults. And that the love was different but still intense.

This made me think of Pam. We met as teenagers and have been together ever since. The chorus repeated a line about “dancing in the dark” and that also made me think of Pam.

If Pam had been there, I’m sure that we’d’ve started dancing a Night Club Slow or Night Club Two Step. But she wasn’t so we didn’t.

A few months later, I’d done some Googling, found the song, and bought a copy. On our drive home from somewhere, I told Pam about the song and played it on the car’s stereo. The song ended exactly as we pulled into the garage and we just sat there for a few seconds, not saying anything.

I was a bit verklempt.