Billy Coffey
Billy Coffey

The Dance

July 30, 2009  

(Okay, I promise this will be the last repeat for a while. Promise. I’ve almost managed to surface from the mounds of balled-up paper surrounding me, but before my coffee buzz fades and I wind up in a heap in the middle of my bed, I want to say this:

I first wrote this post back in October, but it’s haunted me ever since. Our small town has been rocked with the sudden passing of several people lately, and this was the first thing I thought about with every bit of sad news. Death is often a shock, isn’t it? I wonder why that is considering it’s common knowledge that we can’t bolt the doors of our lives to its entry. But what you’ll read here is good advice, offered to me by a very special little girl who thinks I teach her. I think it’s the other way around.)

Here I am, a man in a most unmanly place, huddled together with four others in the same predicament. We talk sports and trucks and the year’s corn crop and anything else with masculine connotations, if only to take our minds off our surroundings:

A ballet recital.

My six-year-old daughter has been taking ballet lessons for a month now. Tonight is the culmination of all that study and work, and it is an event that requires my presence. Thankfully, other fathers of other six-year-old daughters have been similarly persuaded. I have company.

Within our conversation, I watch my little girl. She twirls and steps and trips and repeats. And she laughs.

(”I love the dance, Daddy,” she has told me often. “I think God loves the dance, too.)

Another twirl and step, but two trips this time. She turns, looks at my wife, and wiggles a finger. Come here, Mommy. The two meet in the middle of the elementary school gym, and I know what’s wrong. I excuse myself from the group and join them.

“My sugar’s messy,” she says. We retreat to the stands for her glucometer. Her reading is 389.

“We should go home,” I say.

“We can’t!” she pleads. “The dance isn’t over.” She looks back to her teacher and classmates. “God wants us all to dance until the dance is done. God loves the dance. He said so.”

Both look to me. It’s my decision, and I offer a reluctant shrug. Who am I to argue with God?

Smiling, she returns to her group. But I remain apart from mine. I am instead alone, lost in this little girl, in her spirit and her joy. She dances in spite of her disease. With her disease.

And her bow is deep at the end.

Our evening over, we are confronted in the parking lot by a sea of red and blue lights across the street. A mangled white car, it’s top shorn, lay upside down in the median. Police, firemen, and rescue personnel scramble in choreographed chaos. A medical helicopter waits, blades churning, an angel of metal and wires, death and life.
My family stands silent.

“God bless the wrecked people,” murmurs my son. We all join him, grasping hands in prayer.

My wife and I exchange a look. Our town is small, the identity of the injured likely an acquaintance. Come from the school, perhaps. Football practice. A child? One of my wife’s students? Regardless, it was someone who was here and is now gone. Breathing and now not.

The suddenness of life presses into me. So fragile is our existence in this world, so easily taken and taken for granted. To love is to risk, and the opening of our hearts invites not only the warmth of joy, but fear’s cold winds.

“How can I live with this fear?” I whisper to God.

Silence.

“How can I bask in your light while standing in this shadow?”

The helicopter blades swoosh.

“How must life be lived

(”God wants us to dance until the dance is done,” my daughter had said. “God loves the
dance.”)

in the face of death?”

I look down at my child, safe in the crook of my arm. She rests her head on my shoulder
and sighs. She is safe here, in her father’s arms. We are all safe there.

Yes, God loves the dance. And so should we. We should hear the music in this life, surrender to its rhythms. We should make its cadence our own.
And we should always dance until the dance is done.

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Comments

  • Candace Jean July 16

    You have imparted such beautiful wisdom in your children, Billy. Thank you for sharing that with us.

    Yes, always dance….

  • Caroline

    The things your children say…they just leave me gasping in my heart. You and your wife are raising them well.

  • katdish

    Yet another quote. I'm in the quote zone this week:

    "And when you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance."

    -LeeAnn Womack

  • Anne L.B.

    Mr. Coffey, did you ever tell that little girl that she inspired someone my age to take up dancing and fulfill a long held dream? Please be sure to let her know.

  • Elaina M. Avalos

    I really needed to read this!

  • Denise

    You, and your precious children bless my heart.

  • Live well – Laugh often – Love much!

    Beautiful story and great writing!

  • Helen

    He (Jesus) did say we must become as little children to enter heaven…

  • HisFireFly

    I am without words, eyes filling with tears. This was good, very good. And yes, we MUST continue the dance.

  • Lanette

    Hoping I always dance and teach my children to do the same…..wise words from a young girl. Amazing what they teach us :)

  • lynnrush

    Goose bumps….again. I read this when you first posted it and I felt the same way.

    Have a great weekend, Billy!

  • Jeanne Damoff

    Beautiful. Truly. I'm so glad you've been repeating some of your old favorites, because I wasn't in the audience when they first debuted.

    I love the metaphor of dance for life, especially a ballroom dance with God as the lead partner. He knows the steps and, though we stumble, never lets us go and is strong enough to waltz us all the way to the last note of the last song.

    Your son's prayer reminded me of something Jacob does. His brain injury left him with acute hearing and messed with his ability to filter sounds most of us have learned to ignore. He hears everything. And whenever he hears a siren, he whispers, "Sorry for someone" and then closes his eyes and prays. Given the simplicity and purity of Jacob's faith, one can only imagine the effectiveness of those prayers. Unless we become as little children . . .

    Love this post so much. I know it's hard for you that your daughter has to deal with diabetes, but how lovely that God in His infinite wisdom has already taught her, "My grace is sufficient. Dance."

    Blessings on your day. You've already blessed mine.

  • shelly k

    Thank you for sharing. We too are walking a road with too many endings… but yes God does love the dance and we need to dance until the dance is done-whenever that may be-through the joy and the sorrow, through the hurt and the pain. Thank you for sharing. sk

  • jasonS

    I believe this was one of the first I read. Great introduction because I haven't looked back since! This is a wonderful reminder. Our kids will teach us so much if we allow them.

  • Rebecca on The Homefront

    I'm in tears. Tears for your daughter who is so mature for her age, struggling with an illness when all she deserves is the beauty of the dance. Tears for all the hurt around us. I have gotten news of death or that people are simply waiting for it so often recently, and have really struggled with this. You're right, it's common knowledge that we must all go into that good night. Why do we struggle so with when the twilight will fall on those around us?

    Thank you for the reminder, Billy. In a dance some come only for a short time and then leave the stage, while others will dance the entire show to the final curtain. The hard part is saying good-bye to the dancers who touch our hearts most, even when they had only short time on stage.

    Thanks again for a beautiful post…it is just as meaningful when reposted.

  • KM Wilsher

    BC, lather, rinse, repeat
    repeat! please repeat!
    :) What a blessing you are!

  • David

    I am so glad that I found your blog last week.

    My sister's blog has a link to Jeanne Damoff's and I saw your post on Jeanne's comments page. Over the last few days I have browsed through the archives.

    I appreciate the reminders that we need to slow down and enjoy our walk, plant our seeds with love, dance until the end, find the time to share with our boys while throwing rocks into the creek, and getting a do-over if you upchuck into your candy bag on Halloween.

    Thanks for the wonderful stories and count me in for a book order.

  • Heart2Heart

    Billy,

    After wiping away many tears upon reading this post, I now know why we as parents have children. They whisper to us, the things God wants us to hear and pay attention to.

    Your daughter has given you so many wise words to follow in life and I wanted to thank you for sharing those with us. I will continue my dance now!

    Love and Hugs ~ Kat

  • Daveda

    What a wise daughter you have! God wants us to dance. It reminds of a story Wayne Jacobson told recently, the point was when you are dancing with another, only one of you needs to know how to lead.

    I am so thankful that God leads! If we could all learn to simply enjoy the dance…

  • T. Anne

    Billy, I nominated you for an award over at my blog! Come and get it ;)

  • Jennifer

    Thanks for the repeat–I wasn't here the firt time it blessed many. God needed me to hear this–dance in the face of fear, death, and destruction. Yes.