Our Dance Without a Name

Bereaved parents learn the steps.

We, or anyone who has lost someone they love, move in and out of a rhythm without a celebrity to watch.

There isn’t a Dancing with the Stars from which we learn new takes on dances.

There is the star with whom we wish to dance.

me

Oh, we know different dances. Our dances aren’t on the pop culture scene, nor are they in clubs.

We learn a dance without a name.

In every dance, the steps are different, and sometimes the music’s slow.

My Mimi always said that it takes someone with a hard heart not to be moved by Jean Valjean in Les Miserables when he sings “Bring Him Home.”

I know from experience, as a once a upon a time voice major, that there are days when you do not feel like singing.

But those of us who know loss as the fast beats of our hearts even when we feel we’ve lost them, dance.

The loss of a child is not a situation from which you recover in one year.

Or two years or more.

Although its only been thirteen months since our daughter, Corrie, earned her wings; I reach out more with other bereaved parents. They, or we, all have different stories about our journeys through grief.

One fundamental truth walks with all of us:

The impact of our loss never goes away.

Bereaved parents, or anyone who has lost someone dear to them learn a dance, so we can move with life.

There are a lot of times when we do not want to sing.

We always dance. If we do not dance, we fail to continue with life.

Sometimes our dance is a ballet. That most graceful of dances with the heartbreak that exudes as a light from the darkness.

Sometimes our dance is different, without the same choreography, but our steps move with the same longing to Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Theme” from Swan Lake.

When the music rises, we long for the clouds to open, and for the one we love to appear.

It sounds all very melodramatic.

It is a part of our dance.

Understand we must dance our dance without a name, because if we do not, we won’t get out of bed.

Our moves, our best steps, show when we appear at work, and dare to live again.

Our dance isn’t always the ballet. Sometimes we jump around the kitchen with the kid who still walks with us to a Taylor Swift song. We dance to laugh and remember.

Sometimes we dance together, and we’re part of a dance group that no one ever predicted.

We must constantly change our movements because we never know what will come our way. Our reaction to each situation is influenced in some way by our child or children’s graduation to heaven.

There is a star with whom we wish to dance.

Until that time …

Until that dance …

We will dance our dance without a name.