And now, I'm glad I didn't know
the way it all would end, the way it all would go.
Our lives are better left to chance;
I could have missed the pain,
but I'd have had to miss the dance
.- The Dance by Garth Brooks
The florescent lights of the high
school hallway give her a halo-like glow as I adjust the ruffles of her recital
tutu. My five-year-old only daughter looks like a beautiful angel surrounded by
the light and the hushed baby blue, pink, and lilac of her costume. She is an
angel. She is a miracle. It’s a miracle to be here with her enjoying the
excitement before she goes on stage to dance.
The combination of the lights and
the cold concrete walls of the hallway where we wait don’t return me to my high
school years. This isn’t my high school, and I have no memories lingering in
these rooms waiting to seep back into my soul. Instead, they bring me back to
the longest wait of my life four years earlier.
The quiet stillness of rushing her
to a nearby town echoes in the spaces of my mind. We travel in the first hours
of the morning on the coldest day of the year where the only warmth comes from
a restaurant fire we can see as we drive hurriedly on the unwelcoming, cold and
cracked asphalt. The air is cold, chilling, sucking the very breath out of our
bodies as we rush through the automatic doors. The icy intake of air into my
lungs makes my chest ache. My body seems to be freezing, dying from the inside
out. Yet, I ignore it. I am not actually dying. Our daughter is dying. Her face
is ashen, and her eyes glazed, she clings to me bundled in her soft blue,
lilac, and pink blanket with what energy she seems to have left. She is in pain,
yet too weak to cry.
My thoughts interrupted as my
beautiful miracle calls to me, “Mommy, watch me twirl, Mommy watch me
dance.” I swallow my tears and smile as
I watch her lift her graceful arms and
twirl happily about the hallway with her friends. The school floor is as slick
as ice making her feet fly faster. The incandescence catches the sequins on her
costume and her blue eyes sparkle with delight.
The glow pulls me back in again,
back to the now noisy hospital room. The lights are blinding. It’s filled with
all sorts of medical technicians and nurses, and I can’t get near her. I see
her beautiful graceful arms, but the medical staff has them held down,
stretched out to her sides. She is screaming, terrified of what they are doing.
They have to restrain her. She looks as though she is being held in place
waiting to be crucified. Sharp needles pierce her everywhere; her arms, her
hands, her feet to draw blood, but they cannot find a decent vein. They finally
place some rubber tubing tightly around her head and try to draw blood from her
tiny scalp. I fight my way to her, and the nurses part so I can get closer. I
feel myself crying out to God, but no words escape my lips. I hold her hand and
beg silently for God’s mercy to end her pain.
She was leaving this earth as though she was never meant to
be here; as though she was always meant to be an angel, gracefully dancing in
the heavens. But God changed His mind; He brought her into our lives and
decided she would be a miracle instead. Four years later, my beautiful
miraculous daughter continues to step out on the stage of life and dance.
