Living For Garrett: Peter Pan Ballet

Hailey and Lauren performed in their ballet studio's amazing production of "Peter Pan" a couple of weeks ago. The girls were in the same ballet class this year, which was not by accident. I remember one day in August sitting in the lobby of their studio, trying to muster the courage to fill out the forms to register them for the upcoming year of ballet. It was something I had done every August for the last four years. But only one month after Garrett died, I sat on a chair and starred at the blank forms and couldn't see through my tears. I'd chosen a time of day to go in and register them when I thought the studio would be fairly empty, because I didn't want to make a spectacle of myself in front of other parents. I was grateful that no one else was there except the studio owner, Jana, and one of the office staff members.

It's taken me several months to be able to fill out any type of form and sign my name to it. I can finally do it again, but in August I looked at those forms and was taken straight back to the hospital when I literally signed Garrett's life away. It was the last time I had signed my name to anything, and it was haunting, to say the least. So I sat there and cried my eyes out, shaking like a leaf, when Jana came over and sat beside me and hugged me and let me cry all I needed to. Creative Arts Academy is a very unique dance studio, to put it mildly. Unique because the owners, the teachers, and the staff genuinely care a great deal about the students and their families. When Garrett died, it took no time at all for word to reach CAA and Jana immediately reached out to me and let me know they wanted to help us in any way they could. She had no idea how it helped to have her help me sit and register my girls. It probably seems like a simple thing to most people, but I needed someone to hold my hand and help me walk until I could finally do it on my own again.

Hailey and Lauren danced in the same class when they were three and four years old, but they branched off into different age groups after that. This year, the studio let my girls dance together again to make it easier on all of us. For a long time, our kids wouldn't do anything without each other. Physically being together made things a little better, and CAA was more than willing to accommodate. It also helped tremendously to not be pulled in a million directions this past year. With so many therapy appointments and other activities, streamlining at least one activity helped my sanity. It helped all of us in more ways than one. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a village to help grieve and mourn the loss of a child too.

There was a woman sitting directly behind me and she had to have been at LEAST eleven months pregnant. I couldn't keep myself from turning around to quickly glance at her a few times during the night, and I was taken back to exactly four year before when I sat through the girls' show of "Romeo and Juliet" when I was eleven months pregnant with Garrett. It was such a sweet and miserable time for me. Garrett was born only a few days after that show in 2011.

This year the girls played the part of the Night Sky, when the Darling children are being transported to Neverland. Little trampolines were hidden behind the clouds and the dancers got to leap off of them. Their dance was beautiful and fun whimsical. The entire production was my favorite one to date. In fact, I took the girls back on the final night of the show so they could actually sit and watch it, when they were not performing. They were mesmerized through the entire thing, and I was too.