Recently I received an email that touched my heart - and brought back memories of some very special clients.

A few years ago, I spent 5 days in the fall showing property to a young married couple who wanted to buy a vacation home in our mountains. On Saturday morning I faced every working mother's worst nightmare - a conflict left me with no babysitter for my daughter Dani, then 7 years old, and a full schedule of properties to view. I had never taken one of my children along on an appointment before but I wasn't comfortable leaving a child that age home alone for several hours, so I made her PROMISE to behave herself and not say a word and off we went.

I met the couple at my office, introduced my daughter and apologized for the situation. They were very understanding and we headed off to look at houses with my daughter sitting in the backseat with the wife while I sat up front with the husband. The first house on our list had been vacant for several months. I unlocked the door, ushered everyone inside...and my daughter immediately wrinkled up her nose and said "Whew! This place STINKS!"

After a moment of shocked silence we all burst out laughing. After all, how could I chastise my daughter for speaking the truth? That broke the ice and we had a delightful few hours together, as Dani entertained the couple, who were childless, with her stories of day to day life in our family.

Eventually my husband met us and took my daughter home but the rest of the day the couple had more questions about my daughter than about any of the houses we saw. Dani spent the first 4 ½ years of her life speaking Mandarin Chinese living in a state-run orphanage with over 100 other little girls in Hainan, China. They asked if I'd be willing to talk about the circumstances that led to her becoming a part of our family.

I told the story that still brings tears to my eyes, how I'd learned of the little girls in China, how my daughter's soul had called to mine at 3 AM for a solid month afterwards, about the adoption process and our journey to China with our youngest son to bring home a little sister for him. I talked about how difficult it was for her to come to a strange place with strange people at her age, how hard it was for her to learn to accept and then to trust us...and, finally, about the day that she reached in and touched my heart.

The next day, they never showed up at the office and I found out they had checked out of their hotel. I wondered if I had overstepped the bounds by sharing so much of my personal life with a client and somehow offended them.

Late in the day, I got a message from the wife. She thanked me for the time I spent with them and said they had decided against buying a vacation home. She explained that she was unable to have children and always wanted to adopt. Her husband had been married before and his only child died at an early age. The grief he and his first wife faced led to their divorce. He had been unwilling to adopt because he didn't think he could accept a child that wasn't "his."

But on the way home, he told his wife that after seeing how my daughter interacted with all of us, and hearing our story, he was ready to consider adoption. They decided to take the money they planned to use for a vacation house and adopt a little girl instead.

Not long ago, I got an email from them, thanking me for changing their lives and telling me of their happiness with little Mia. All I could think of was that commercial -

1 commission lost - $$$

3 lives made happier - Priceless

Here's my beautiful daughter Danielle