Dancing in Flagstaff
| When My Boy was just a toddler, he had a “he’ll grow out of it syndrome” that cyclically make him very sick. (he did, in fact, grow out of it) After months and months of clockwork-like illness, he was sick yet again, and we were all at our limits. I picked him up from daycare and headed to the pharmacy once again. Exhausted, frustrated, heart-wrenched, I sat in the pharmacy waiting area with my precious baby sleeping on me, raging with fever, miserable. On the overhead speaker came the song, “I Hope You’ll Dance,” by Leann Wommack. I sat in the pharmacy, burning fever on my chest, burning tears coating my face. That song pierced my heart and seared itself into my memory as though it had been branded there. I can still feel the heat, the heaviness, the hardness of the chair, the tears that ran to the floor. That song said everything I wished for my baby, everything I could ever hope he’d have the opportunity to live out. Much time has passed, twenty-plus years actually, and I’ve heard that song a few times over the years. It always takes me back to that hard plastic chair. I feel it all, and my heart is defeated in my chest. Just like today. I have spent three days driving cross-country with that precious baby of mine, who is now twenty-four. He has accepted a graduate assistant position at Northern Arizona University, and I really gave him no choice but to have me drive with him to the West. It’s been pleasant enough, though he doesn’t relish talking to his mom, so there’s been plenty of quiet. But we’ve traded driving duties and seen the countryside together, and I am sure I’ll never forget it. Just like I’ll never forget the very first stop we made in Flagstaff, our final destination. We were both hungry and his favorite road-trip restaurant is Cracker Barrell, so the minute we crossed into city limits, we pulled into the restaurant to satisfy us both. And then it happened, in the most unexpected way, and I’ve never choked back tears as roughly I did in that moment. We walked in and loud as it possibly could be, “I Hope You’ll Dance” was playing over the air. My insides shattered and melted all at the same time. Why now?? Why this song?? Don’t they know I’m here to leave my heart?? Don’t they know how cruel this is?? Don’t they know my baby is supposed to be three-years-old and never sick again? I was not upset that he had to go to the men’s room, it gave me time to attempt to compose myself. It was a futile attempt, but I tried. Tried with all my might to not hear that song. Tried with all my might to not let those fat, thick tears fall from my eyes, just as they are as I write. It was brutal. Someone may as well have stabbed me in the heart. I was undone. But, in true mom fashion, I got it together, told myself I’d save it for another day. Told myself I couldn’t do this in public, not now. It’s not the day, and I’m not the one. Not today. Not in front of My Boy. Because he IS dancing, he DID grow up and is healthy and vibrant and he made it, and has plenty more to do. And as I sit in this hotel lobby, alone but with people, I write this and cry, and I can hardly see my screen, but I’m leaving my boy at the doorstep of his greatest adventure – his greatest dance. For it is the dance that will waltz him into his destiny. |
JustCallMeSharon 
Recent Comments