6/18/11 "Dancing with Daddy, no more"--- from my blog notes taken on a yellow legal pad on 6/15/11, the day before Daddy died.
I stood looking down at his gray tennis shoes with the velcro straps---not the familiar white strings of his Nike walking shoes that he laced up for 33 years every day but Sunday. (No walking on Sunday---his own self-imposed rule.) I puddled.
I knew he would never wear shoes again, stand again, or dance with me again.
With that thought, I felt the tightening pain welling up in my throat and the back of my jaw---almost like a constricting burning sensation. It moved forward and began to consume me. The tears trickled. My nose dripped. I wept.
The memories spilled over. Stories mother told me of dancing with her Hoptown flame at Dunbar cave in Clarksville. Memories of Mother and Daddy going to the Elks club dances, never missing a New Y
ear's Eve one. Mother and Daddy could really "cut a rug" as they did the jitterbug.With the big band music of Benny Goodman or the crooning of old blue eyes. Frank Sinatra, my tall, stately parents, face to face, would glide together as one. In that front hall at 2211 where I had watched them dance, Daddy, with right arm at my waist and holding his left hand out for my right hand, placed me on the tops of his shoes and taught me to dance.
With all of these thoughts tumbling in my mind, I began to smile, especially when I recalled dancing with him just 2 years ago at my 45th high school reunion, though certainly Daddy's days were not much longer on this earth.
This kind, quiet, gentle man would dance with me no more. I had to let him go so he could dance with Jesus. I knew Mother and Allyson would be in line to tap on the shoulder and "cut in" for their spin on heaven's floor because nobody can dance like "my" Daddy.
To everything there is a season.....a time to be born, a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance; ( Ecclesiastes 3:1-4)PS I might be weeping as I type but............ Daddy is dancing in heaven.
