Dancing and Dying

Last night I was dancing. I like dancing, I have blogged about this before, I swing dance. For all of you who can't imagine me dancing, remember spring sing? I think I just look better. I got home around 11:30 last night, of course it was saturday so that is cool. I opted not to go out with the crew after our dance because I had to work today, Sunday. I had a hard time really getting into the freedom and the mood of it though because I knew I would be returning to my job today.
When I am on call I work with five hospitals. I have visited two other than the one I stay at default tonight. I hope I am done tonight. I have had nice nights before where I got to sleep all night, the last two weeks have been different I got no more than two hours. It happens, I can live with that I just wish it would happen to someone else for a while.

At one hospital I was talking with a woman who might lose her son, and was sad their last discussion was an arguement. Then I got the question in another hospital, "when you wear blue does that mean someone died?" I told her no, but when we are working on call we wear blue labcoats so the staff can recognise us quickly as the chaplain. then she said, "anytime I see you in blue it means someone has died." Of course the kid I went to see wasn't out of the water yet.

When I came back to the default hospital I answered a death call where there was a lot of family. A LOT of family and they were all sad. You know something I appriciate about African American families, they support each other in mass numbers and they get their feelings out, even the men. Oh there is a manly cry and they have mastered it. I know I am stereotyping, but you will get over it. I think it is something white people can learn about family, it doesn't matter if they like each other they always come when they are needed, and when someone dies they are needed. At a death today there was wailing, there was praying and at one point I heard someone say "Jesus," and if I didn't know the situation I think he would have been cursing, but in this situation I think he was calling on the name of our savior because that is all there was to say.

This is what I say to anyone reading this post...Dance... dance in your own way, swing, latin, ballroom, alone in your room, with your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, father, mother, friend, relative. Dance when it is fun and dance when it is hard because life is a dance. If you can walk you can dance, but we don't always have a lot of time so just dance. It doesn't matter if you are good it doesn't matter if you suck. Just dance. Because when death knocks... I am tempted to stop dancing. But that is when I need to dance the hardest, because it is in the dance I know that I am alive. Walking away from a song that was faster than I thought, when I am tireder than I thought and I and my partner both pant trying to catch breath, then I know I am alive. And when I can no longer dance(which is when I am dead, read Tuesday's with Morrie)... I want someone to place silver dollars on my eyes so I can pay the boatman at the river Styx, then hopefully, when I cross that river, I can dance some more.