Natalee's Dance

Five years ago today my beautiful 20 year old niece Natalee went home to be with the Lord. The calendar days fell exactly the same way as this year. Thanksgiving day was on the 27th and Natalee died on Friday, the 28th. While every Thanksgiving will hold some grief as we remember, this year feels especially poignant. We miss her. We always will.

Today as we celebrated with my husband's family we had a special time of remembering Natalee. We told fun stories about her and we also shared how her death had affected us. We watched portions of the dvd compiled about her life. There was footage of her taken just a short month earlier. She was hanging out with college friends. They were in the dorm, goofing around together. Natalee was dancing, being completely silly, laughing, cutting up. It was completely Natalee! It was good to remember her in this way. I want to include something that she wrote herself as I close this blog today.

Natalee's Dance

So we dance together for a time....

the fellowship, the human touch-

Someday we will say we danced

So we dance together for a time....

Your eyes laugh, your mouth leaks a smile hiding not your heart.

My eyes cannot help but follow your lead, they laugh too, and...

So we danced together for a time...

the light-hearted dance of faith and joy,

the slow dance of pain and heart ache,

the difficult dance of questions and of doubt,

the exciting dance of truth and direction,

the strong dance of victory and defeat,

the humble dance of thanks and of grace,

and ever the childish dance of delight in the sand.

So we dance together for a time...

We dance the dance of laughter

We dance the dance of tears-

The lighthearted dance of laughter-

the spirit is free and the feet need no direction or rhythm

We dance the slow dance of tear and pain and.....

We will dance apart for a time...

You will dance this way and that way

and the Lord will direct your feet

I will dance that way and this way

and every now and then we will share a dance or two again.

But then, when it seems dancing is no more,

when we lose sight only to gain it-

We will dance forever for a time...

But forever has no time, so we will dance and dance and dance!