It has been a while since I last wrote about my parents. While the intention was to keep writing, I found myself wanting to gain distance from the memories and thoughts about my parents. Thinking of them is still painful, an unhealed wound that I would like to pretend doesn’t exist. That has proven impossible and I find myself thinking of them each day that passes. Sometimes my thoughts are of good things that we experienced together while other thoughts are of their last moments with us.
My mother’s birthday came around recently and I had planned on penning something about her life and what an amazing person she was, but nature seemed to have different plans and cast upon me a wicked cold that left me feeling like doing very little but coughing. Two days after her birthday was Valentine’s day and again I thought perhaps I would write about how mom made every holiday, including Valentine’s day special, but that too was a thought with no resolution.
Tonight I was carrying on a ritual that I am sure most of you have experienced. You go to youtube and you see an interesting video in the suggestions. Next thing you know hours have passed and you have watched countless random videos of cat doing silly things followed by movie bloopers and odd clips from television programs. Finishing your journey with a video of people riverdancing before saying to yourself, ‘Enough already.’
It was the dancing bit that got me thinking about mom. My mother loved to watch people dance. She loved rhythm in many forms, even rap music. Watching dancing was a guilty pleasure for her. She had watched every season of Dancing With The Stars prior to her passing. She also watched another dance show called So You Think You Can Dance. Actually we both watched these shows and then one of us would call the other on the phone and we would talk about which performances we thought were good or bad and who would be voted off next or who would win the show. An interest in dance was something that we shared. I liked that.
Back in the 90’s I was doing a bit of country western style dancing with a group of people I knew. I took lessons and would show off my moves at local bars that had country nights. One weekend there was going to be a party hosted by a local country music station at a hotel, so I got some tickets and arranged for my parents to come stay in the hotel and join me at this party. I did some dancing while my parents watched and then convinced my mother to let me teach her some two-step. I had such a good time that night. My mother remarked about how she loved to watch me dance. In the last couple of months of her life she told me that she so enjoyed it when I danced and she wishes that I would take that up again. Well, I don’t know if I will ever get my boot-scoot’n groove on the dance floor again, but I can look back with a smile at that time we had dancing together.
Honestly, I would like to dance again, but knowing that my mother would not be there to see it makes the task seem pointless. Oh I know that life must go on, but the music has changed and so must the dance. I will have to learn this metaphorical new dance and who knows, perhaps in time I will find my way back to the shit-kicking dance floor when the music changes again and the dance does not seem so pointless.
Thank you for that wonderful memory mom!