No dance, but lots of love

When Katie was 3 and a half, Steve was starting to decline. The tumor was growing, and he was getting weaker. 

We made the decision that winter that he and Katie should go to the Frisco Daddy-Daughter Dance, even though she was not yet 4, the minimum age suggested for the dance. Her best friend Noe and our dear friend Layne were partners in crime, ignoring the age suggestion and dressing up for an afternoon of music, dancing and lots of sugar.

It was, in fact, Steve's final February. I will always be thankful that we made the decision to bend the rules. 

Every year since, Katie has asked to attend the dance. Each year she asks her Uncle Greg or her Papa or her Uncle Jim to take her. We buy a dress. We fix her hair. She wears a corsage. She's treated to a lovely afternoon.

And as much as she loves spending time with the special men in her life, she struggles. Watching all those girls with their daddies makes her too sad.

This year Katie decided that she would skip the dance altogether. When we talked about it in December, she told me she would prefer a special family day instead.

Today is the Frisco Daddy-Daughter Dance. I'm pretty certain Katie doesn't even remember. I'm not reminding her, and she's never on Facebook to see the flood of photos from our friends who are attending. (I love, by the way, seeing all the photos!)

Katie and Cooper at the Perot this morning

Katie, studying cells in the Bio Lab at the Perot

Lunch in Trinity Groves

We have had a special family day. First a haircut for handsome Cooper. Then a few hours at the Perot Museum for the new Sherlock Holmes exhibit. (Cooper and Katie are writing an article about the exhibit for the Briefing edition of The Dallas Morning News.) After the science fun, we ventured across the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge for lunch at Kitchen LTO at Trinity Groves. Then we headed north for a little shopping -- new scarf for Katie, new shoes for Cooper, new (used) books for my classroom.

Now we're home, and Katie is working on an art project. We're going to read a chapter or two from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We'll probably watch a movie before bed.

I know that Katie knows she's loved. She feels confident and secure. She's the most spiritual, faithful, poetic soul I know. I am proud of her mature decision to sidestep sorrow, and I am thankful that I get to love on her her, spend time with her and learn from her. 

Can you imagine how proud Steve Damm is of Katie? How proud he is of Cooper? My tears today are for Steve, who has missed so much of their precious lives, and for Cooper and Katie, who didn't get near enough time with him. 

We were blessed with plenty of love, though.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

-- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8