I wrote the following poem in honour of my dance teacher, Catherine Boeckner, when she died very suddenly due to the complications of Lupus in 2002. If it was not for her, I probably would have continued to go misdiagnosed for many more years. She was a role model to many and taught me and others a great deal about how to survive living with Lupus. Because of this, I am including here as part of the Write A Poem project.
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Catherine’s Dance
The day she was born the dance took stage,
A courageous spirit that would never age.
It moved in all aspects of her life,
Her love and her compassion, her pain and her strife.
The dance was apparent when she did succeed,
But there was a time when it seemed to recede.
When she could not move and it always seemed night,
The dance still raged on, fighting to see the light.
It leaped and it turned trying to break free,
Emerge from the shadows for everyone to see.
Out of the dark, the dance broke its chains
Like the sun breaking through the clouds and the rain.
Her dance continued to move until the very end
Surrounding all of her family and friends.
She lived a life, which inspired all she did meet:
A mother, a wife, a teacher; she did not miss a beat.
Although she is gone and she will be missed very much,
Her dance lives on in all that she did touch.