Put On Your Boogie Shoes
The love of dance lives on and on
My daughter was born to dance.
My theory is that her brain is so busy, words simply aren’t sufficient to convey all the thoughts and feelings bouncing around in it. Evie also needs to clap, stomp, chassé, pirouette, body roll, leap, cartwheel, and sometimes moonwalk to fully express herself.
She’s everything my mother wanted me to be as a child.
I have hot, itchy memories of the involuntary dancing I did in the early ’90s: wincing as my sequined bodysuit scraped the insides of my upper arms while my jazz class toddled down Garden Way during a sweltering Fourth of July parade; nervously performing pas de basques over crisscrossed swords as I sweated in a worsted-wool tartan kilt and bagpipes blared in my ears at the summer Scottish Highland Games.
Dancing, for me, meant discomfort and a little danger.
For Evie, it feels like freedom.
I quit dancing as soon as my mother would let me, around age eight. It broke her heart. Evie, meanwhile, keeps adding more and more routines to her busy competition schedule each year.
But one style of dance she always resisted was tap. Hip hop, lyrical, and jazz came naturally to her; tap seemed too technical for the free-spirited way she’s wired.
“If you really want to be a professional dancer someday, you have to be well-rounded,” I explained last summer, convincing Evie to audition for placement in a tap routine. She begrudgingly agreed.
As a total beginner, she didn’t make it into the large class most of her friends were assigned to. She was placed instead in a trio with two other girls who were new to tap.
It wound up being the best thing that could have happened.
Their teacher was 17-year-old Jada, the wildly talented daughter of one of the wonderful choreographers at our dance studio.
Some dancers demonstrate technical skill, while others are magnetic performers. The very best ones dance with such confidence, ease, and joy that it seems like the choreography cannot be contained; it was always meant to pour out of their bodies.
Jada is a prime example. Whether she’s dancing solo or as part of a huge production group, I find it impossible to tear my eyes away from her. It’s almost scary how good she is at such a young age, and I can’t wait to see what she does in the future.
Forgive the hyperbole, but Evie learning to tap dance from Jada was a bit like getting free-throw tips from Michael Jordan.
The girls starting learning the choreography for their routine in August. Evie was frustrated at first; there were so many new moves to learn, so many particular ways her brain needed to rewire itself to make those little metal plates strike the studio floor just right.
But as she pushed through the challenges, she began to love it. As someone who lives to bring the drama and be the center of attention, Evie found this noisy, expressive style of dance to be right up her alley.
During the trio’s first performance at a recital in December, Evie remembered to smile at times, but mostly her face was tense with concentration as she looked to the other girls to make sure she was doing the right moves. Early in the life of this routine, the effort showed. The girls still did wonderfully and looked so cute in their schoolgirl costumes and frilly socks.
As the dance season continued, their tap confidence grew, and the trio earned special recognition at every competition. This thing Evie had been dreading became a surprise highlight of her year. She starting tapping nonstop around the house, whether she was in her bare feet or UGG boots. (The latter drives me a little nuts, but who am I to discourage practice?)
At the final dance competition this past weekend, the girls slayed, as the kids say. Their faces were relaxed and full of personality. The choreography poured out of them. They won second place out of all the duos and trios in their division—the highest honor any of Evie’s six routines earned.
She was so proud. I was so proud.
My mother would have been so proud, too. A granddaughter who loved dance as much as she did was her dream come true. She would’ve been in heaven watching Evie tap away in her red plaid skirt, which wasn’t dissimilar from the tartan kilt of my dancing heyday.
My mother didn’t live long enough to see the routine, but she lived exactly long enough to hear it.
On Wednesday, August 27, 2025, Evie attended a class from 6:00-7:00 pm to learn her tap choreography. I was at my mother’s bedside when one of the other dancer’s moms sent a video of the choreography to our group chat after the class.
Don and I had been with my mother all day, anticipating her death within the next 24 hours. I wanted to be there when she passed, but I was exhausted. Don was going to spend the night; I told him in the afternoon I planned to leave at 8:00 pm to try to make it home before dark so I wouldn’t fall asleep on the drive. As the day wore on, I mentally revised my departure time to 7:30.
Hospice nurses will tell you dying people seem to be able to choose when they pass. They’ll either wait for somebody important to arrive or to leave before they let go. I had no idea whether my mother wanted me to be there or not, but for my own comfort and closure, I wanted to hold her hand and tell her everything was okay and see for myself that she was not scared or in pain as she died.
Around 7:20, I noticed the video of Evie dancing in my text messages. Don and I had been sitting in silence for a while, having exhausted all conversation and my mother’s favorite CDs.
I stood up from my mother’s left side and held my phone over her bed to show him the video of the routine, set to “Boogie Shoes” by KC and the Sunshine Band:
Girl, to be with you is my favorite thing
I can't wait 'til I see you again
I wanna put on my, my, my, my, my boogie shoes
Just to boogie with you.
I was bursting with pride as I watched Evie tackle this new challenge. The song and choreography were so fun; she looked like she was having a blast.
As soon as the video ended, my mother’s breathing drastically changed. We knew.
I scrambled to pull up the song she used to sing to me at bedtime—“Sunshine On My Shoulders” by John Denver—on Spotify, and Don and I told her, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” as she drew her final breath.
My mother was gone at 7:25—just a few minutes after we watched Evie dance, and five minutes before I’d privately decided to head home. It didn’t feel like a coincidence.
Until my last breath, I’ll be grateful I was there for hers. I think she knew I needed to be.
I like to think my mother had some awareness of what was happening around her and shared our joy in watching Evie dance. It was her very favorite thing, and so fitting for her final moments. Maybe she took the happy distraction as her cue to slip out.
At some point I wondered if that tap routine would be tainted or triggering for me, but it wasn’t. I’ve only ever been perfectly content watching Evie shine.
After witnessing a death, it feels like even more of a privilege to see things continue to grow and thrive. In this case, it’s my daughter and her skills and confidence. It’s her elation over doing something she loves. It’s her sense of accomplishment when she overcomes challenges.
My mother is gone, but all these wonderful things live on and on.
If you enjoy reading Rollercoaster Road, please help it grow by liking, sharing, or leaving a comment. Thanks for joining me on the ride.
Lovely <3