The Page

These last few days have been a wonderful time! I love being a teacher, and one of the biggest reasons? I get time off with my kids when they are out of school too! I love that I get the days off that they have off and we get to spend that time together. We have parent-teacher conferences in our district right before Thanksgiving break, so the week before our vacation is usually pretty stressful. I have 54 kids on my count right now and I try to make it to as many of their conferences as I can. It does not always work out, but I do make it to a big chunk of them. Plus, I have evaluations and IEPs that tend to occur right around that time as well. So it's a busy lead in to the Thanksgiving break. And then four days of doing nothing at all! Just staying in my pajamas, decorating for Christmas, enjoying the down time with my family. Or, at least, that's what usually happens. Not this year! This year, my Amelia tried out for the Nutcracker, and made it! She got the part of a Page. In case you haven't seen the Nutcracker lately, the Pages are the four little girls who follow Clara and the Prince into the Kingdom of Sweets in the Second Act of the performance. They sit on stage next to Clara and the Prince for the whole Second Act. Amelia's favorite thing about the part? They get to eat cookies when the bakers bring them out. She was thrilled to get a part! And even more excited when she found out that she was hand-picked for the part because her teachers and Ms. Irene knew that she would be able to sit for the whole second hour of the performance. And Amelia took her job very seriously. So, we have been attending practices and rehearsals and meetings every weekend since she got the part, which I think was around mid-September I want to say. Every Sunday we would head to the dance school for Amelia to go to rehearsal. And it's been a long, stressful, expensive process. And then, Thanksgiving break! Not the relaxed, jammie-wearing break I usually get. Full run-through on Friday, full dress rehearsal Saturday morning, first performance Saturday night, second performance Sunday night. I will admit that I perhaps grumbled a little bit. I was panicked that I would never get the ballet bun down. I maybe teared up a little when we showed up for auditions in a pink leotard, and then read the note while she was auditioning that said she needed a black leotard. I felt like mom of the year when she was called out for not having good "ballet hair" after one rehearsal. I felt like I was writing checks non-stop: tickers to the show, flowers, a sweatshirt, a DVD of the performance, a CD of photos from the whole process, a donation for the raffle...and I grumbled and stressed and worried and prayed...a lot :) This past weekend was her performances. Two performances, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. All of our friends and family attended the Sunday performance, so I signed up to work the Saturday performance. As a dance mom (I've never seen the show, but I'd like to think that I'm nothing like them...LOL...because there were a few there this weekend...HA!) you are expected to assist with production one day, and you can watch one day. So, I volunteered to be the Page mom backstage for the first night. My job was to entertain the Pages while they waited for their part to start in the second act. I was to make sure they got to makeup, and went to the bathroom before their big debut. I needed to get them in costumes and make sure that ballet buns were still in order by the time they hit the stage. And I needed to make sure that they followed Clara and the Prince out onto the stage. And then today, I got to watch her perform. And what a proud momma I am! She didn't do much dancing, but to see her on stage in the midst of all of that, it made my heart soar! She loves to dance! She loves to perform! And she's a natural! She was all smiles...she savored every bite of that little cookie...she waved her little arm off when Clara and the Prince left the Kingdom of Sweets. Tears come to my eyes now just thinking about it. When she was done, Emerson and I met her in the changing room with flowers in hand. We hugged and I told her how proud I was of her. Emerson kept asking Amelia why Clara hurt the Mouse King and wanted to make sure he was ok. She cried during the performance when he died. Leave it to my little troublemaker to side with the bad guy! We went upstairs to our friends and she got more flowers and accolades. She started looking around, and I asked who she was looking for, wondering which of our family and friends she didn't see. "Mommy, where's Clara? I need to see Clara!" and just like that, the crowd parted and there was her Clara, across the cafeteria at the high school, waving at her. Amelia gave her flowers to my mom, and took off running across the cafeteria to give her Clara a hug. Clara (she has a real name, I'm sure, but we call her Clara) was the best! Being the backstage mom I got to see Clara interact with her Pages and she was amazing with them! They doted on her, and she made sure each and every one of them knew how much they meant to her. In fact, at the beginning of the performance today, Clara met the pages in the dressing room and presented each of them with a Nutcracker doll of their own. Amelia was smitten with "her Clara" as she calls her. They hugged and said words to each other, and Amelia came skipping back. She asked if anyone had a pen and she took the pen back to Clara and asked her for her autograph on Amelia's program. Amelia came back BEAMING! This young 8th grader from our community made my little girl's performance! And I am grateful to Clara for being such a positive role model for Amelia. When we first tried out for the Nutcracker, and Amelia found out she was a Page, she said, "I'm so glad I have this part! I get to sit on stage and see all of the parts and find out what to do to get those parts! And she knew from the beginning she wanted to be Clara! This leads us to our one more thing mommy moment. Amelia set her Nutcracker doll on the headboard of her bed and kissed him goodnight. Then I'm tucking her in and I tell her how amazingly proud I am of her! She smiles and I turn her light off. She said, "One more thing, mommy...I'm so sad!" and then she burst into tears. "Amelia! What is wrong??" "I don't want the Nutcracker to be over! I had such a fun time doing it! I loved all the friends I made in the dressing rooms. I love all my Page friends. And I made new Sugar Angel friends. And what if I never see my Clara again! I wish I had her address. I want to write her a letter and thank her for being the best Clara ever! I love her!" "Aww, Amelia! I'm glad that this was so fun for you! It's hard when things come to an end. But you know what? We can write a letter to Clara and leave it with Ms. Irene. And we could invite your page friends over." "But, I'm going to miss the Nutcracker! It was so magical! I don't think I can wait a whole year to do it again!" "Amelia, a year will pass and it will be Nutcracker time before you know it! In the meantime, think about your goals and what you want to do to make yourself an even better little dancer. And go for your goals! If you want to be Clara someday, then you work to be Clara! Do what you want to do and work for those goals! They are important!" "Mommy, I just want to be a page again, but only if I get my Clara back!" "I don't know if you'll have the same Clara, but if you want to be a page, then you work hard to be a page!" "I love you, mommy!" "I love you too, Amelia and I'm so, so proud of you!" and I turned her light off and walked to the living room. It's hard! It's so hard when something good comes to an end, isn't it? Think about the moments in your life where you find yourself in the middle of the moment saying, "I never want this to end!" There are many moments that run through my head when I think of this! There are so many things, so many events, so many times that I wish there was a pause button on life. Just to be able to live in that moment forever. Time with my sister, football games with Kristi, watching Amelia or Emerson dance, holiday dinners with my parents, phone conversations with Melody...and many more!! We don't want the good times to ever end. But, they do! And they don't always end like we want them to. The football game has to be over. My sister has to live her life in California. The phone calls have to be done. We all have more moments to move on to. And as hard as it is for those moments to be over, we wouldn't be able to move on to another moment if the previous ones weren't over. My fairytale came to a crashing halt. My life started to fall away a piece at a time in a span of eighteen days. I went from happily married to horribly widowed in eighteen days. I was devastated. And I mourned the lost of my fairytale, of my perfect life. I wished for our last happy moment together to never end. But it did. And you know what? If I had chosen to remain in that moment, I wouldn't be the person that I am today. I wouldn't have become the survivor and the fighter that I am today. And I wouldn't be ready for whatever God has in store for me in the future. There's a picture I've seen on Facebook that says something to the effect of "When God takes something away from your grasp, He is not punishing you, but merely emptying your hands to receive something better." The first time I saw this, it made me angry. But now? I get it. My something better is here. I have learned to see the blessings through this. I may not get to dance with my Clara anymore, but there are bigger and better things headed my way! And I tried to explain this to Amelia. She will be sad that she doesn't get to dance with her Clara, but with her ambition and her patience and her talent, she will BE Clara someday! I have no doubt! So, don't be afraid to let go! Sure, it's hard! And it'll be sad, even heartbreaking at times. But, things have to end so new things can begin! And you have to let go so you will be ready for those better things! Because there are better things! Just wait and see...