Dancing in the Mourning

As I think about my experience with my daughter’s struggle to just STAY ALIVE for so many years, I realize that, because of how long and how many times she hovered between life and death, I never really had the time to MOURN all the times I “buried” her and didn’t think she was going to make it.

I remember one time in the hospital, while she was in bed and I was sitting in the chair next to her, saying over and over again to myself, like a mantra… the "Lord’s Prayer." I remember another time her Uncle Phil was coming and I sat there saying to myself over and over again, like a mantra… “just stay alive to see Uncle Phil one more time.” These are only two examples of the, literally, thousands of times Cristina was so close to death. This doesn’t count all the other times she hovered between life and death at home and in the hospital and all the times I actually went out with a pager and she paged me because she was having serious difficulty. I would have to drive home… not too fast to get stopped by a cop, but not slowly because… the worst thing would have been to get home and find her dead and that she had died “alone.” That was one of my mantras as I was driving home for another emergency: “You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.”

How many times can you “bury” your child without going insane? How many times can you do that without having the time or energy to really “mourn” this? Another aspect of this whole thing that was extremely difficult was that over and over again in my mind, I’d think about… what would Cristina want to be buried with? Do I talk to her about that? Do I ASK her about that? I didn’t know if she would want to be buried with her jewelry or if she would have wanted to “gift” certain friends with some of her things. I knew I’d bury her with her “blankey,” a childhood gift from her father that she’d slept with for many years. I knew I’d put music in her coffin. I knew I’d put flowers in with her. I was also afraid I’d throw myself in there with her.

As time has gone on and Cristina is no longer fighting for her life in the way she was for so many years post-transplant, I’m realizing that I never mourned all this. And then I got cancer. Malignant melanoma about 7 years ago. I never mourned my potential death… I was too concerned about how Cristina would handle it.

What was one of the ways I coped with all this? Dancing, of course! I found Argentine Tango. Argentine Tango is one of the most passionate and expressive of dances. For me, it was ONLY in Argentine Tango that I could express the pain, sadness, and ache in my heart about my daughter’s condition. It was this incredible combination of pain, beauty and sensuality all in one dance that, in any way, eased my heart.

So I Danced in the Mourning…