Dad was my first dance partner. When I was a small child, he held me on his hip and twirled, singing to Don Williams. As a young girl, I stood on his feet to the same tunes… same artist.
When Don Williams died in my adulthood, I cried.
Memories are like songs… some help keep the tempo of our lives, mirroring emotions, ages, and stages; others come to mind when an unexpected moment, sound, or sight brings us full circle to something in our past.
In my first year of junior high school, the very first dance that required a pretty dress and a partner my age had arrived. I was still too young to be overtly interested in boys, despite many of my classmates already having a boyfriend or girlfriend.
I was so nervous about going to the dance that when a boy asked me, I blurted, “No,” then quickly recanted my answer. I didn’t want to go, but I also didn’t want to not be asked. I felt like I was stepping into a space that I was too inexperienced to be entering.
My mother took me to purchase a dress. We were on a limited budget, and dresses to be worn for one occasion didn’t make much sense. Yet, Mom appeared almost giddy as she helped me sort through the selection in my size.
“Oh, this one, Tiffany. This one would look so pretty on you,” she said, handing me a pale peach satin dress with a small ruffle that repeated itself on the hem and the sweetheart neckline: simple spaghetti straps, full length, no pattern.
I stared at the dress. It was beautiful. Nothing added to it would make it look any lovelier. As such, I was nervous to try it on.
I was more of a tomboy than a dress girl, but I realized as my mom zipped up the back over my bony shoulder blades that maybe I was that way because I didn’t have an occasion to be otherwise.
The dance was a reason. With the dress on, I felt as my mom described: pretty.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror: freckled skin, wispy strawberry blonde hair, flat-chested, a sunburn line from my soccer jersey, and a purple bruise on my arm from last week’s game. It looked like I was making a poor attempt to play grown-up; yet the dress fit, and I was thrilled to wear it.
The morning of the dance, Mom and I went to the florist to pick up my date’s boutonniere. The ribbon on the single white rose matched my dress.
I had never given a boy a flower before. I opened and closed the refrigerator almost every hour before the doorbell rang just to make sure the rose hadn’t browned.
The tulle petticoat itched my legs. So much in fact that I borrowed a pair of Mom’s pantyhose to wear with my one pair of summer church shoes.
I hadn’t noticed before, until the boy was in my living room, that he had as many freckles as I did and appeared just as nervous: both conclusions put me at ease.
He tried three times to pin my corsage on me; each time, the rose slipped sideways, or the stickpin pricked his fingers. Dad came to his rescue and put the flower on me in one try.
I stood stiffly in the pictures taken, almost holding my breath, afraid the flower’s petals would fall upon the quick pulse of my heart.
Looking back, I recall as much as I have forgotten. I do not remember the boy’s name, though bits of him remain… mostly his nervousness and mine.
As school years passed, corsages were eventually fitted with elastic bands upon my wrist, and dates stood closer to me in pictures. My reflection in the mirror showed more of a girl turning into a young lady, even though I still felt like I was playing dress-up.
Many years later, when my mother moved from my childhood home, she would give me several totes to sort through, each full of folded letter jackets, sports uniforms, and dresses from school dances.
When my own daughter was old enough to try them on, I pulled out the totes. She gave me a fashion show in the living room. I clapped upon her entrance as she curtsied, twirled, and smiled. She was having so much fun that I thought she might burst.
Was her heart beating just as fast as mine once did in that very same dress?
Did I look that young in that dress?
She sparkled, and as I watched her, so did I.
“Let’s dance!” she shouted. “Go get on one of your pretty dresses, Mama!”
I made quick work of it, swapping sweatpants for satin. I still have a picture we took from that very afternoon.
This impromptu happening started a tradition of her and me once a year trying on fancy dresses together.
We didn’t have a reason. We just had the moment. And the moment became the occasion.
Perhaps this is the best sort of memory-making: the unforced, unscripted bits of time that churn upon themselves into the creation of bedrock and beauty… the moments that simultaneously take our breath away and give us breath to push through in days ahead.
It’s often not the grand gestures that make the best memories. Sometimes it’s a conversation in the car, the song you sing together on road trips, or having coffee on the porch watching the lightning in the distance.
And sometimes it’s the quiet realization that every dance with my father as a child, every nervous pin of a corsage, every dress passed from mother to daughter, is a gift already wrapped by the Giver of all good things. Gifts that we can open in memory, time and time again.
These ordinary moments are not accidents of time; rather, they are expressions of His love. In them we recognize grace that keeps tempo with our lives despite the unexpected twists and turns along the way.
So, we often hold onto the dresses, the songs, the photographs, and the laughter, not because they were flawless or we were perfect, but because they remind us that we each play a part in a larger story, written by a hand far steadier than our own.
Memories are still waiting to be made, regardless of age, even if they may look different from those we’ve treasured in the past.
In this hope, may we return to the childlike expectation of the happenings of something wonderful.
This column was originally published by CherryRoad Media. To read more faith-based columns and inspirational writing, follow Tiffany Kaye Chartier on Facebook. Her devotional, “The 4-Minute Reset: For Cultivating Peace, Purpose, and Positivity” is available on Amazon.
Provided by Dallas Express
