She was a dancer, who moved with effortless delight in every step, bound, and soft prance she took. When she was on stage all eyes were on her, praying for her to make her next movement, which she would, then continue on into another and another. You never wanted her to stop dancing, and she wouldn’t till she was good and ready to. Her long russet colored hair always up in a tightly wound bun when dancing. She lived for the excitement of performing.

She was my best friend and she would come to me before every performance to help her prepare. I would brush the light make up across her porcelain white skin, pink to highlight her high cheek bones, and brown to go over her eye lids to create a mystery in her eyes. She was always the one who had to do her hair though. Taking the silky strands by her long slender fingers she would carefully wind it up, not missing a single piece in her long rope of hair, then she would twirl it up till it reached the back of her head and gracefully poke the bobby pins through.

I only knew her for two years before we found out the news from the doctor that she had stage four cancer and only one year left to live, if she was lucky. She was only seventeen, and the last twelve months I spent with her she spent three hundred and sixty-five of them dancing.