Learning to Dance On

This past weekend, I attended my nephew’s wedding. It was a beautiful and joy-filled occasion—the bride radiant, the groom proud, both absolutely glowing with love.

The reception was wonderful, and then came that dance.

If you’ve been to enough weddings, you know the one. The DJ invites all the married couples onto the dance floor. As the music plays, couples step away one by one, until the pair married the longest remain, dancing alone in the spotlight. Marriage is honored as the bedrock of society—as it should be.

“The love of husband and wife is the force that welds society together.” – St. John Chrysostom

I love marriage. I’ve said “yes” to it twice. But that dance—while sweet in intention—can stir unexpected pain.

This time, the longest-married couple was the bride’s parents: 41 years. A legacy of love. I celebrate that deeply. Behind those years lie countless choices to show up, forgive, reconcile, and stay.

But not all of us get to make that choice forever.

Before my first husband died, I was wrapped in the bliss of the moment. I saw only the celebration. Now I see more. I see the people seated quietly, hearts heavy with grief or loss—of a spouse, a dream, a marriage that ended or never came to be.

I first felt the pain of that dance at a friend’s wedding—another widow. As other couples rose from our table to join the bride and groom, I stayed seated, fighting tears. A few seats down sat a friend freshly grieving the collapse of her marriage. One of the last wives to stand turned back and whispered, “I am so sorry.” She knew. And the dam broke.

Loss doesn’t always wear black. It sits at the table beside you. It watches the dance from the edges of the floor.

“Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love… It is not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure.” – C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

For a long time, it felt like the dance had ended. But slowly, gently, I’ve come to believe what Lewis said is true. The dance continues—it just changes.

It takes courage to learn new steps. It’s not the dance you imagined, but it can still be beautiful.

I’m dancing again.

And if you're in the in-between space—hurting, grieving, watching from the edge—I want you to know: you will dance again, too.