The Madness of Hope

The Dance

I walk in her door and my heartstrings are stretched so hard they want to snap. Her color is gray and she has lost more weight. She is nauseated from the chemo dripped into her veins and its poison has dwindled her away to less than one hundred pounds.
She is one of the bravest people I know as she forces herself to keep going, to endure pain and more treatments for a terminal disease. She could give up but she has a beautiful daughter that dances.
The dance keeps my friend going. I’ve volunteered to help by taking her daughter to dance lessons but she says, “I love to watch her dance.”
It is the dance: the graceful movements that prove a young woman is maturing and growing up. If the dance goes on, if she can watch its story, she will be ok.
When the dance ends, the breathing stops.
So we dance. We dance with laughter and we dance with tears. We point our toes away from us, pushing away the pain and inevitability of death. The movements are graceful, poised. We forget all else. We are lost in the beauty of the dance.

Dance, then, wherever you may be I am the Lord of the Dance, said He! And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He!