Da, is that what you're wearing to the dance tonight?"
"Yeah."
{silence}
"Mom, can you please dress Dad?"
I have on clean blue jeans, a grey sweatshirt and two pairs of socks. Everything matches and I feel pretty good in them.
Laughing, Sarah's already on it, finding me something more appropriate for the one hour dance at the school.
While they search, I stumble outside to get as high as I possibly can before we leave.
I change into the chosen t-shirt to complete my wardrobe: Jack Frost from "A Nightmare Before Christmas.” Che just loves that movie.
She is dressed as a princess, sporting a dress she once wore in a wedding, with her long hair in a ball on top of her brightly bowed head.
She is beautiful.
Sarah drives us the 1/2 block to the school, conserving my energy, and drops us off.
Che is a dancing machine at home, sings loudly and makes videos for us to enjoy. She's forever grabbing me to dance and I whirl and spin her around the Living Room, like someone pretending they know how to shag.
Which is precisely what Che wants to do now, she grabs my hand, and yells to her friends, "Watch this!"
I spin her around the dance floor, wildly flinging her as far away as her arm can reach, and then quickly pull her back close to me. We do this repeatedly.
Only a few other parents are dancing with their children and none are moving with our passion and wild abandonment.
This goes on for two-and-a-half songs before Brielle, Che’s friend, starts a conga line, which Che, and most every other kid present, joins.
I stumble to a chair and collapse.
The conga line, a marvelous hodgepodge of diversity, comes by in a slithering line and multiple kids smile and high-five me as they dance by.
A little boy I do not recognize stops and tells me that his “Grandpa had cancer too, but beat it and is still alive.”
I am sitting in stunned silence when "The Electric Slide" plays, the conga line explodes and Che grabs my hand and pulls me up for the final dance.
She spins the wrong way each time the song calls for a jump, which sends us all into convulsions of dance floor laughter.
Grabbing my hand before the song finishes, Che pulls me down the hallway, speaking and waving to friends and teachers, and outside where Sarah's waiting to drive us home.
Che jumps on her phone to talk about everything that had just happened to the same friends we'd left a few minutes earlier.
A little while later, Che's settled for the night and I'm rubbing Sarah's feet as we talk and watch TV.
I immediately fall asleep, hands still on her feet.
"Go to bed," she lovingly prompts.
A few hours later, I'm back on the sofa, when Che sleepily meanders out and lays beside me.
"We were the best dancers," she says before falling back asleep, now with her head in my lap.
Salt water fills my eyes and I am humbly grateful that I got to do this, when the odds really are against it.
I should just be thankful that I got to dance with Che like that one more time, when I shouldn't still be here at all, and I thank God for what could very well be my last dance.
Here's the thing though.
I'm determined as Hell to do again next year.
_______________
I'm dying as happily as I can, but I think I can to better.
See how by clicking the link this link
https://gofund.me/ffda4f4b
Thank you!
