Her Final Steps

I remember that sunny spring day, nearly twenty years ago when my mom walked me into my first ballet class. I was 5 years old and extremely shy. I held on to mom's hand tightly. Her hands were plump and a bit clammy, but her grip was very comforting. "Go on inside Rayne, I'll be back to pick you up at 5:00," she said. I looked at the big round clock hanging on the wall; it was barely 3:00. "Hurry up now, you look real pretty in your little pink leotard." My leotard was mostly all pink, except for the white stripe going around the stomach like a belt. I even had on light pink tights and ballet slippers to match. I'd picked the whole outfit out myself just the day before. Mama noticed the nervous look in my eyes, gray eyes just like my daddy's, but she just smiled her warm smile and nudged me inside the gymnasium. I never would've thought that that gym would be where I spent most of my time from that point on.

I took to ballet like a bee does to honey. My teacher, Mrs. Matthews, said I moved with such grace and poise. "She moves as if she's gliding on air," I heard her tell my parents. Daddy beamed with pride every time he heard someone compliment his little girl. I was an only child and the apple of my daddy's eye. He was a rather quiet man, which is where mama says I got my shyness from, but he seemed to do just fine as a musician. Daddy played the saxophone in a jazz band and he was well known around town. My parents came to all of my recitals, along with my grandma (mama's mother, daddy's mother had long passed away), my cousins, aunt, and our upstairs neighbor Ms. May. They all praised my dancing so much, telling me how far I'd go because I, as Ms. May put it, "had eyes that captured the soul and moves that danced footprints on the heart."

From swan princess', to fairies, to butterflies-rehearsals and recitals were all I knew. During my teen years I didn't hang out much with my friends, and I didn't even get a boyfriend until I was sixteen. His name was Michael, and not surprisingly he was also a dancer. Some of my friends made fun of me for dating a male ballet dancer, but I thought he was cute. Michael had big brown eyes, pretty white teeth, and I thought he was strong. He sometimes had to lift me up during rehearsals and to me, that made him strong. The two of us were practically inseparable-we went on to colleges in the same city and married right after graduation. Michael quit dancing right after high school and became quite the track and field athlete in college. I majored in dance in college, with dreams of becoming a professional dancer.

It paid off too; I landed a major role shortly after graduation. As flawless as most of my previous performances had been, I was a nervous wreck on opening night. My stomach felt like the butterflies were actually in there playing hopscotch. I peeked from behind the thick red curtains from backstage and saw Michael and my parents sitting in the center of the third row, smiles on their faces, obviously proud to see my in my big moment. The curtains went up at 7:00 and I glided across the stage like I didn't have a care in the world. For some reason, no matter how nervous I was before a show started, I was as calm as a baby being rocked to sleep once I started dancing. Everything was on cue, I'd hit all of my marks and had one final move left. I had to leap off of a platform about two feet high into one of my fellow dancer's arms, just as he was coming out of a full turn. I could tell something was wrong as I was flying through the air towards his arms. His position looked awkward, but it was too late for me to do anything. I closed my eyes and felt his hands try to grab my waist before I hit the floor really hard. I heard a crack, and then lots of gasps from the audience as I lay there in pain. Looking up, the last thing I saw was the stage lights before everything went black.

When I woke up, I felt a familiar plump hand holding on to my hand and heard the constant beeping of the heart monitor I was hooked up to. I opened my eyes and tilted my head to see mama with her eyes closed grasping my hand in hers. Daddy was looking out the window at the rain and Michael was staring right at me. I tried to speak but there was a tube down my throat which prevented me from talking. Those weeks in the hospital were a painful blur. Doctors and nurses coming in and out of my room giving me pain medicine, everyone trying to encourage me. It turns out that crack I heard when I hit the floor was the sound of two vertebrae in my back snapping. Luckily I wasn't paralyzed, but I would endure many months of excruciating physical therapy. My body had gone from being graceful and limber, to being as stiff as an old dried out rag. The main reason my recovery was so hard was because I realized that I'd never be able to dance again like I once did. All my life dancing was all I knew and now even walking short distances was a painful chore for me. I began writing in a journal Michael bought for me. The passage I wrote not long after my accident read "Hitting the concrete like drops of Rayne, I'm hanging up my slippers never to dance again."