It's a Polka Party and I'll Cry if I Want To

“I think his name was Paul,” she said, with all the innocence of her eight years and those pursed lips and wide eyes she uses to shyly say she is proud of herself.

She had wanted to polka. With a vengeance. The invitation had come several weeks before for the annual party held by her Nana’s twin brother. And she had talked of nothing else for days. I knew she was excited for the pierogies and the dessert table, but it was really the dancing that had her mesmerized.

But when we arrived at the party, she realized that there was no one to dance with. Nana was busy telling stories, her parents had no rhythm, and her brothers could not be cajoled away from the marshmallow peanut butter brownies. Uncle Nick did his best and tried his hand, but it was all too soon before a kinder older gentleman stepped in. We think his name was Paul.

Let me digress to say that my children and I were the only people there under the age of fifty, by a long shot. And most of the guests were quite older than that. But her youth was not the only thing that made Maura stand out. She is earnest, in all tasks, but especially things like this. She doesn't quite stick her tongue out while trying to figure out the polka, like her little brother does when he is busy concentrating, but her face says it all. Quiet strength.

She has this shy demeanor, especially in public, and never moreso than at a gig like the Honky Express bash, median age 63. (It would also be a good time to point out that the police were called, albeit at 4:30 p.m., because the music was too much for the neighbors. I hope they didn't see the geriatrics double-fisting Crown Royal in the corner. There HAS to be a law against that!) So amidst all the chaos, of course Maura turned bright red when her uncle twirled her into Paul’s waiting arms, and then again when Paul continued to polka her feet around the dance floor.

And it was somewhere there between the Honky Express saxophone belting in the summer afternoon, and the gray-haired man twirling my girl around the floor, and the sweetest smile of pleasure and delight plastered to her face, that I lost it a bit. The elders were too intoxicated to see the tear roll down my cheek. But I had to bite my lip to keep from losing them all.

It’s so unfair, these moments remind me, what she has lost. Although in fairness I suppose she cannot miss what she did not have. But my heart is heavy for her grandpa she never knew (and who would most likely never have polkaed with her had she did.)

But what she WOULD have had?!? Oh, what she would have had.

The way she looked up at Paul on the dance floor with the sun kissing her tanned skin, and all the joy and trust in the world wrapped in the face of an angel, well that scene made her mother wish for many things that might have been.