Throwback Thursday: Prom 2000

I was 16, and a hopeless romantic fighting to be practical. I wanted to go to the Junior-Senior prom, but instinctively know no one would ask me. My classmates and I had already been through the preliminary middle school dances together, and everyone knew: Connie couldn't dance. In fact, if you tried to pretend she could, you just ended up with bruises on your shins and scuff marks on the toes of your shoes. I asked a sophomore friend if he would go along, and got a shockingly flat "no." Apparently, word gets around.

My mom suggested I ask an older guy - Bryan, a friend of the family who was home from college for a semester, who I volunteered with in a drama team. He was four years older than me, had an earring, and listened to the Black-Eyed Peas, and being a college guy from Asheville, he was pretty much over the stupid, self-conscious insecurities of high school. So taking me to my prom didn't make him flinch at all.

He decided we needed to get to know each other a little better before then. So he came over to hang out at our house, and he drove our family's rediculous full-sized monster van. We decided to go to dinner on prom night with my best friend and her date, and that we'd go bowling afterward and come back to my parents' house for breakfast, and he teased that he was renting a powder-blue tux. But we never discussed the elephant in the room... that I couldn't dance.

What I didn't realize at the time was how much he was paying attention to the way I maneuvered my wheelchair, or how many Fred Astaire movies he watched that month (in case you are unaware, Fred was famous for being able to dance with anything and anyone).

On the day of the prom, Bryan pulled up to my parents' house in his topless, doorless Jeep Wrangler. I hadn't noticed that my family had cleared the driveway of all the cars and swept it clean, to create a dance floor. Bryan turned on some old Rat Pack music in his jeep, stepped out in a black tux with top hat and cane (he knew how to be very classy), and asked me to dance.

He held my left hand while I drove with my right, and he explained how he would lead me by the way he held my hand. We could waltz and swing together before we left the house. And yes, we danced all night.

I think that is one of the most romantic things a guy has ever done for me - just taking the time to pay attention to the little details, in order to give me the gift of strength and grace, and to make me forget what I cannot do, for one magical night.

The Art of Stretching

After my hospital stay, when I was recovering, my doctor prescribed some physical therapy for me. Mind you, physical therapy was a big part of my life . . . twenty years ago. I remember doing exciting and strenuous exercises like sitting up and balancing on a giant rubber ball and blowing cotton balls around a tabletop with a straw. But most of all I remember the stretches: stretching knees, ankles, and hips, mostly, and the amazing goniometer that would measure how far I could extend these joints. The PT would stretch my leg out as far as possible before I would wince or whine, and then just hold it there for a minute until the muscles behind my knees loosened up. I hated physical therapy. What would it look like now?

I had a really positive PT experience, and I learned some things that have helped me understand how muscles and neurons in my weak and messed up body works. I remember sitting in Kevan's room, going through my exercise routine, which is more just a stretching routine... which I realized is actually more of a "holding pattern" routine. This is how it works: I stretch my neck to one side and hold it for thirty seconds, then stretch to the other side and hold for thirty seconds, then repeat several more times. Then I wrap a big rubber band around something solid and pull it back toward me, and hold for a few seconds. Then I wrap it around the back of my neck and pull it down toward my lap, and... hold... 

Notice a pattern? Well I did. A lot of holding... tension in waiting. This is apparently how muscles are built, strength is built. And in my spiritual life I feel it is true too. I've felt some tension as I wait on the Lord to see what he will do. Hanging on, keeping a grip on things, and waiting can be difficult, even painful, and it is. But as I pull and stretch and hang out in uncomfortable positions and circumstances, I'm wondering what is happening to the muscles of my soul and spirit in the mean time. Are they building up and getting stronger? The more I stretch and work out my faith, and the more I maintain my focus on what is true in the midst of trials, the more I feel the ache in places that haven't been challenged in a while, muscles that I've taken for granted and not really tested lately. But also, the more I learn and grow, and the more I feel like God is strengthening and preparing me for the next step in my journey with him, whatever that is. 

Once again, God is using my weakness to make me more aware of his presence and more dependent on his strength.