Momma Says

It was a a cool summer morning when she handed me the book. Inside the cover she'd written a sweet birthday wish. I turned the pages to find the story of a dance.

While that book sits on my bookshelf back home, alongside another one she gave me a few years later Something Worth Leaving Behind,  I remember the line she closed with, "my Jess, I hope you always choose to dance. Luv, Mom".

That birthday eleven years ago, Lee Ann Womack's I Hope You Dance became our song. I hadn't thought of it really until the lyrics began playing over and over in my mind this week.

My mom used to paint. The mayor's portrait (Townsville, AUS way back in the day of big hair and high waisted jeans) hangs in Townsville's city offices bearing her strokes. Robert Redford adorned a giant canvas screen tucked along a wall in my house as a child. I used to sit and go through her sketchbook that sports drawings of a foot, bridesmaids, and flowers. Those images still in my memory.

But she stopped painting. She stopped drawing. For years. This week, though she sent me this image: a mural she decided was worth taking the brushes out again for.

It's been a long time. Some days it's as if time stands still and nothing changes. And yet everything does. Brushes to the wall as feet to the floor - they beckon the choice. My friends, I hope you always choose the dance.