Dance the Dance Slowly: What a Dying Teen Can Teach Us about Living

[Excerpt from Fleury’s book: “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” originally published in Spare Change News] 

“Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round? /Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground? /Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? /Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? /You better slow down. /Don’t dance so fast/Time is short/The music won’t last.” So begins the hopeful and emotional offering of an anonymous teenager dying of cancer in a New York hospital with an estimated six months to live.

We have all heard the clichéd phrases “Slow down, life is short” or “Take the time to look around and smell the roses”, but in this case the inherent meaning has been further enhanced by the unpredictable behavior of cancer and the non-committal allotment of time. I too have been exposed to this calamity imposed on humanity known as the “C” word.

Before re-discovering my pressing need to write as a profession, I worked as a health care professional for about ten years. Both fortunately and unfortunately, my last three years was working at the Chilton House, a hospice residence in Cambridge. I say fortunately, because it was my most meaningful learning experience and unfortunately because it was by far the hardest.

For those of you who do not know what a hospice is, it is a place for the terminally ill to make their final exit with peace, dignity and even harmony. But essentially, it is also much more than that. It is also a place for both families and patients respectively to find closure, forgiveness, joy (yes, even joy) and enlightenment.

There are five stages anyone who is dying or experiencing a major loss goes through according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, author of “On Death and Dying”. The Five Stages of Grief are:

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

It is written that “Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom). This also includes the death of a loved one, divorce, drug addiction, or infertility. Kübler-Ross also claimed these steps do not necessarily come in the order noted above, nor are all steps experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two.”

The stage that the dying teen is most likely at the “acceptance” stage. By writing the poem, it is apparent to me that the dying teen is  making peace with her condition and is “preparing” for her untimely departure. But her message of hope goes beyond the grave.

I will print her poem in its entirety at the end of this article. But before I do, I am compelled to tell you what I learned in my years as a hospice nurse. The midnight hour had just landed, perched like a crow upon the hospice house comely garden (the crow is said to be a symbol of death).

One of my patients was dying. He was a white professor from Harvard University. Of all the people he knew, I was the only one there, a “black kid” as he said, holding his hands to the end.

And he turned to me and said: “Listen kid. In life, status, education and money are not what matters. What matters is what was true and truly felt and how we treated one another.” After which he died one hour later.

Consequently, this teenager’s compassionate legacy to humanity is the following poem, which makes me feel that we should be kind to each other while we still can because she is embracing us with kindness even as she anticipates taking her final breath. Just like her poem dictates, please read it not in haste, but slowly so that you may absorb its distinctive taste. Her poem is a gift meant to be opened slowly while the music is still playing and you’re still capable of dancing…

Slow Dance

By an anonymous teenager

“Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain Slapping on

the Ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the

fading night? You better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast. Time is short.

The music won’t last. Do you run through each day on the fly?

When you ask how are

you? Do You hear the reply?

When the day is done do you lie in your bed with the next

hundred chores Running through your head?

You’d better slow down, don’t dance so fast.

Time is short. The Music won’t last. Ever told your child 

‘We’ll do it tomorrow?’

And in your haste, Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, let a good friendship die cause you never had time to call And say hi?

You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short.

The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life is not a race. Do take it slower.

Hear the music

Before the song is over.”

Her dying wish is for you to pass this on to as many people as possible. Please help fulfill a last request. In this case, share as many copies of this book as you possibly can!

One woman wrote a letter to the editor thanking me for the article and for sharing this young woman’s poem. She said she slowed down long enough to read it on the train ride home during rush hour and it brought her to tears. She decided to go out dancing with friends that weekend!

Jacques Stanley Fleury is a Haitian-American Poet, Author and Educator. He holds an undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts and is currently pursuing graduate studies in the literary arts at Harvard University online. Once on the editing staff of The Watermark, a literary magazine at the University of Massachusetts, his first book Sparks in the Dark: A Lighter Shade of Blue, A Poetic Memoir was featured in and endorsed by the Boston Globe. His second book: It’s Always Sunrise Somewhere and Other Stories is a collection of short fictional stories dealing with the human condition as the characters navigate life’s foibles and was featured on Good Reads. His current book and hitherto magnum opus Chain Letter to America: The One Thing You Can Do to End Racism, A Collection of Essays, Fiction and Poetry Celebrating Multiculturalism explores social justice in America and his latest book, “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self”  along with all other previously mentioned titles are available at public libraries, The Harvard Book Store, Porter Square Books, The Grolier Bookshop, Goodreads, bookshop, Amazon etc…  His CD A Lighter Shade of Blue as a lyrics writer in collaboration with the neo-folk musical group Sweet Wednesday is available on Amazon, iTunes & Spotify to benefit Haitian charity St. Boniface.
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