Tribute // Kyle Thomas

Tribute

Screams, cheering, and applauses rumbled through the room. Heart racing, heavy breathing, sweaty hands. I’m sitting in the room waiting to hear my name to get called. I’m on stage at a dance competition sitting with my friends and teammates. It was the last award for the night.

It was a hot night in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and my team was going to perform on stage. There were only two acts left. We all gather in a circle and wish each other luck on stage. When I was dancing on the stage, my confidence boosted higher. The nerves that I felt before all had disappeared as I moved. Sweat dripping down my face and my heart is racing. My eye filling up with water and I’m about to pass out while I danced. After we performed, all you can hear was heavy breathing and people cheering that we had done a great job.  The last award was between us and another team. By one point, the other team had won. The look on all of our faces was speechless and upset because we did everything that we could to get to nationals. You can see the sweat and tears rolling down our face, but we didn’t let it get to our heads and we pushed to go harder.

A few days after the competition, I was walking up the steps to get to the third floor to go to my dance studio. Suddenly I heard  my dance director counting, “Five, six, seven, eight.” I walked into my dance studio with black sweatpants, a black hoodie and headphones in my ear playing one of the dance sets. My dance studio is really big and has a lot of air conditioners in it. As you walk in you will see a tone of trophies on the wall, floor, and on the shelves. Suddenly, I notice that my dance director was crying in her office and my teammates had surrounded her. When I got there, my other dance director Ms. Danielle who is best friends with Ms. Kamillie told everyone, “Ms. Kamille mother had passed away from cancer.” My eyes began to tear up when I heard the news because her mom always uses to walk up to me after every performance telling me that I did a great job and how she likes the way that I dance.  Ms. Kamillie’s mother had always brought this positive energy everytime you are around her. She cared about all the kids and made sure that we all would stay out of trouble.

Later on,  the team and I decided to do a dance tribute to her mother because we felt as though that we need to show her how much we cared about her. The practices were long hours everyone was tired and trying to push through the pain. Ms. Kamille didn’t know that we were doing this for her. We had to keep it a secret. We performed this at our dance recital because we wanted everyone to see this dance tribute that we put together. At the end of the dance, we gave Ms. Kamille flowers and a big group hug to show support and love. Ms. Kamille was speechless because she saw how much we cared about her and how we all will manage to get through it.

After that experience, it made me realized how it is good to have people support and care for you. I had learned that it is good to have extended relationships with people because I know that I can contact them at any time if I needed anything and they would be there to help me. This situation will always resonate with me because it allows me to see the importance of friendship and family. It made me realize why they are important to me. People should be grateful for the people in their lives because you never know if they will be gone in the next moment. Life's too short for you not to appreciate the ones who support you and care about you. You need to realize how big of an impact that will have on your life because you will know that they got your back no matter what you plan on doing. Lastly, everything is not always about winning but it's about the work you put in that made you and/or others happy.