By BuckDuck on 23:56:05 09/26/12
This isn't to toot my own horn but to show that there are cool kids out there. Your post made me think of somebody that I haven't thought of in a long time.
There was a very small special ed class at my high school. There was a girl that was born with almost no legs and had other problems (I feel terrible that I can't remember exactly what her diagnosis was). She was in a wheelchair but would go to every dance. Her name was Tammy.
Tammy asked me to dance for the first time our 7th grade year. I was there with my friends and didn't want to be the kid dancing with the wheel-chair kid. I told her, "Maybe later." I spent the rest of the dance worried that she was going to come back and ask me again. She waited until the announcement of the last dance. I've always been a dick but I do have a big heart so I told her that I would. We went out and danced to 'Stairway to Heaven'. I felt really weird the whole time and was constantly worried about being made fun of. A couple of guys said some snide things but I blew them off.
A couple of months later there was another dance. I had a "date" this time. I wasn't even thinking about Tammy asking me. About halfway through she came and asked me. I told her that I had a date and I couldn't. Tammy went and asked the girl if I could dance with her and she told her yes. She came back and said that Amber told her it was okay for me to dance with her. The next slow song was the last song of the night. So out we went, to dance.
Over the next 5 years, we danced every single (except for one) last dance together at every dance she made it to... which was most of them because her parents were awesome and took her to each one. We had a lot of dances at my school. There was one after every single home football game. It was at one of those that we missed our only last dance together. One of the guys asked me, "Are you dancing with the Weeble tonight?" That was the mean nickname that the shit heads at school called her behind her back because of her appearance. I don't think it took a second before I punched him in his stupid effing mouth and jumped on him and started punching. I got kicked out of the dance and had to leave school grounds... but he got a trip to the ER for stitches in his mouth.
She would joke that we should actually go together to a dance. I hadn't ever really thought about it and would kind of laugh it off. My senior year I was dating a girl from another high school. For a reason I can't remember, Misty couldn't come to my homecoming dance. I didn't want to go unless I had a date so it hit me, Tammy. I asked her and she said that she would love to. We did the whole shebang... the only thing we couldn't do was have me drive. Her dad drove us in their van so we wouldn't have to jack around with her chair... dinner, tons of pictures, and the dance. We had a blast. We joked about weird it was dancing every dance together.
That Christmas break, Tammy died in her sleep. I never knew how or why but her parents told me that she went peacefully. Her mom told me at the viewing that after she got home from homecoming she stopped in the living room and just cried. Her mom asked her what was wrong and she said that she was happy because she had one normal night that she would never forget. Yeah, I bawled like a little girl after that.
I didn't go to another school dance until my senior prom. When they called last dance, I went and sat at a table by myself. My prom date wasn't happy and I didn't explain why I was sitting during the last dance of my high school life. It just didn't feel right.
I hope Allison has people that treat her well because of how awesome she is and not out of pity. I didn't keep doing what I did with Tammy out of pity. She was my friend and she was awesome. Thank you for posting about Allison so that my memory would be refreshed.