Sam Dancing with Lovely in the Dining Room Ron AI

One day, Lovely said, "You know, Sam, maybe you should see an orthopedic surgeon. Joint transplants are becoming quite common, and I read that they have greatly improved mobility for those like you with severe arthritis."

I had thought about it, but like many things, now that I had Lovely to do all the heavy work while I basically watched, I hadn't acted on it, like a fool. I felt that I had to apologize and blurted out… "Oh, Lovely, thanks for reminding me. I've been taking advantage of you instead of doing something for myself that would help us both."

"I hadn't told you earlier because that would mean you would have to fire me or reduce my hours if you got more mobile." She smiled and winked at me to show me she was just joking. I really liked that about her.

But I took what transpired seriously and made an appointment right away.

She had a thing about fat and often talked about it. Before we knew it, we were making up a parody for her favorite song… "Eats a lot, a lot… Eats a lot, a lot… And you will be fat, like me."

She was feeding me so well with those wonderful love-cooked meals and increased portions; I was gaining weight and fighting it, especially with my bad joints.

I was diagnosed with having replacements of my hips and knees all at the same time, to get over it. The operation was very long and the recovery was longer, but Lovely was there when I woke up in the recovery room feeling no pain and then there in my hospital room singing to me when I started to feel it as the nerves began to grow back.

There were therapy sessions at the hospital, and then I was moved to a rehab hospital where the therapy continued to grow until, Lovely pushed me out of that place in a wheelchair, helped me transfer, a bit painfully, to the car seat and drove me home. I had a regimen of exercises, some that she was taught by the physical therapist, and some that I had to do myself until all of the surgery cuts fully healed and the nerves reconnected—the painful part.

But the new pain was much more pleasant than the old one of bones grinding together. You might say I was well oiled. We started to walk together in the morning through the neighborhood. Slowly at first and not very far. But as time went on, we started to increase the distance and the speed until I began to feel like I had never had arthritis at all.

Lovely told me while we were walking, "Now that you're better, I'm going to get that old record player and those records so that we can do some dancing. I miss dancing, don't you?"

"I sure do. I think I have those moves still in my mind from when I learned several ballroom dances during our coed lunch hours on Friday at my high school. Would you like me to hold you close like I learned?"

"You know I would, honey. I'll get the player and records and bring them over so after your dinner, tonight we can work it off with a little dancing. Okay?"

I was thrilled, but I tried not to let her know, just answered, "Okay."

I was totally surprised with the range of classic 78 records she had. Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Elvis, Willie Nelson, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Roy Orbison, and more. At first, we just put the records on and listened. While we were eating, cleaning up and washing dishes before watching a movie or a TV show before going to bed. I couldn't help singing along, and occasionally, I had memories of those old songs where I could actually sing them a cappella, to Lovely's delight.

She told me, "You know, Sam, you have a lovely voice. I love the way you carry those tunes."

With that, I couldn't help but oblige her and began to remember songs and put the lyrics together, often falling short of them all but getting the tune and words with my baritone voice as close as I could to the original hit. Always old songs like Camp Town Races, "Do da, do da…" And Clementine, "Lost and gone forever, oh my darlin', Clementine." Oh Susanna, "Don’cha cry for me!" And She'll Be Comin’ around the Mountain, "When she comes… When she comes." Somebody was still singing them on the Internet, so we could get all of the lyrics and hear how they were sung by the old-timers—mostly songs written by Stephen Foster. About places and events all over the country from his home in New York City. Sheet music that caught on wherever there was a piano, banjo or guitar and people wanting to gather around and sing.

But I had folk songs and protest songs embe dded in my brain as well and they came out from time to time, like We Shall Overcome, "Someday…" Where Have All the Flowers Gone? "Long time passing…" This Land "is your land, this land is my land…" And a host of others. They were crying to get out and Lovely was so eager to learn. She had heard the songs, but she was too young to have lived them, like I had. She just wanted to hear me sing them.

But, back to dance. We created a little dance space where the dining room table had been but after my wife left never used—sold it and the chairs. Got some mood lighting and when there wasn't anything good on TV, started dancing to those 78 records. Slowly at first because it was painful for me with those fast-moving rock 'n' roll songs. I began to remember some of the ballroom dances I have been taught during those coed lunch hour sessions in high school with fond memories of getting up close and personal in a tango with one of our best-looking cheerleaders.

"Teach me," Lovely cooed when I told her about it.

I tried to recall dance steps like the fox trot, the lindy, waltz, jitterbug, samba, mambo, and tango with some success. But we had to go to the Internet again for some of the dance step diagrams. I wasn't much for the diagrams, liked to improvise.

One night after I had recovered enough so that I could do the jitterbug without pain, and we'd had more than our usual wine in a rather romantic mood, she said, "Sam honey, why don't we turn off the record player and just dance to your singing?"

Of course, I had renewed energy on my new, well-oiled joints and felt ten years younger. I pulled Lovely close and started singing my best Elvis, "Love me tender, love me true … My darling dear, and I always will." Something like that and we melted into each other's arms feeling higher than the wine was making us.

For a while, we went out to clubs and danced with youngsters. And then, we joined a local dance club. But soon realized that they were stuck in a rut and really too old for our budding romance. And we were too old for the hip hop scene in most of the clubs, so we ended up retreating to our little dance studio where I struggled to remember the old dances and the right songs to sing with them like, "Remembering losing my sweetheart at the Tennessee Waltz," and other tearjerkers. Like, "Crying" along with Roy Orbison. 

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Eventually, time took its toll, and I once again began to slow down, but thankful for the years Lovely and I had together when we could travel, go out to dine, drink and dance, and I could give Lovely the kind of romance she had never had in her younger life of abuse and poverty.

As I grew weaker, my voice, from singing so many times those old songs became stronger. Lovely said one evening; "I want to record you singing those songs so when you're gone, I'll have something to remember you by."

We found out that her iPad took excellent videos. When we transferred the files to my computer, I also found that it was easy to make streaming videos. In the next few months, Lovely would dress me up in various different styles of dress; we would get the proper lyrics of an old song that I liked to sing. After learning the correct lyrics and a few rehearsals, Lovely would record me singing, a cappella, the songs like one of my favorites, After the Gold Rush, Neil Young's predictive classic and that haunting Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody of caged loneliness.

I didn't put them on the Internet for them to become viral, only so that she would still be able to listen to me sing, and even sing-along, after I was gone.

But some did go viral and I kept getting offers from placing ads to actual recording deals. But I couldn't tell the good from the scams, so avoided them all, glad that I was not on Witter, Snazchat, Kipcat or any of the other feeds that they continued to create who picked up my videos without my permission. Some viral, most not.

There came a time when even the replacement joints no longer helped me and I had to stay in the house with Lovely's, loving help. She needed to go on with her life without me, and I prepared her for that by leaving her most of what I had accumulated, including a small retirement fund. She also helped me sell all the things she did not want, and we both were surprised at some of the prices people would pay when we went on the Internet marketplaces. A kind of yard sale without having to put things out on the yard. An estate sale when I knew what was being sold.

I had to go earlier to bed as my congestive heart failure progressed. Still, whenever we were preparing to go to bed Lovely would always ask, "Sing for me, Sam?"

And I would start singing whatever came into my mind even though she liked one particular song so much that she started singing it around the house during the day. Really appropriate for my situation because that old Christie Minstrel tune about, "Singing for one's supper and being carefree, not worrying about tomorrow." Was the way that we felt in the waning days of life having done so much before.

Sometimes we would sing in duet. Often, I found that I fell asleep in the middle of a song. The best sleep remedy ever.

I remember singing that song to her and she joined in. Everything went dark, but I emerged from the dark in a dream. I was in the dream with the music playing when I saw her and called out, "Lovely, join me! Holding out my hand as I drifted into space.

She floated up, even younger than when I first saw her. I took hold of her hand, and we flew up from the light into darkness and the music wound down.

Copyright 2022 © Ronald W. Hull

4/23/2022