Prompt: Write about a woman who inspires you.
She was a dancer without a stage. The slip of a town where she grew up had no dance schools, no performance opportunities. She danced anyway. In an age long before YouTube, she found instruction where she could, watching performances on her black and white television, choreographing for her friends or for school talent shows, taking part in the Appalachian dances at the small college where her father was dean of men. She rushed to finish high school early, graduating at 16, and, against all better judgment, enrolling in the dance program at Texas Christian University. “On the first day of class, I had to watch the other girls put on their pointe shoes so that I would know how to tie them,” she wrote in a letter to her parents. There was no way that, at the “advanced” age of 17, and with no formal training, she could hope to be successful in a rigorous dance program, the head of the department told her near the end of her freshman year. “You should find something else to study,” he said.
Instead, she enrolled in a three classes that summer, working for up to 12 hours a day until her toes bled and her legs could barely support her. She graduated three years later at the top of her class, with a fellowship in Greece waiting for her. She was resilient, she was brave, and she was maybe a little bit crazy. She knew what she wanted, and there was nothing anyone could tell her that was going to prevent her from getting it.
It is easy to look at the circumstances of my mother’s life and see a story of tragedy and unfulfilled promise: a beautiful dancer ravaged by the inexorable march of an incurable illness. But now I know that really, hers was a story of passion. How many people can say that in their years on this earth, they found something they truly love, and then fought for it? How many can say, with certainty, that they have had the courage to follow their dreams? She did. She lived her own truth, through every facet of her being. And that is unforgettable.
*It's International Women's Day, so I couldn't resist 1.) a Maya Angelou reference and 2.) making up a prompt to write (brag) about my mom.
