This blog post is revamped from September of 2016. It's dedicated to my heavenly friend Cheyenne, thank you for the laughter you brought us, and thank you for the time you spent here with us.
Do you ever wish you could dance your way through life? I do all of the time. Sometimes I wish there was music playing in the air, and sometimes on really good days there seems like there is! We take good days for granite, things happen in a split second. Things we wouldn’t think would or could happen and then just like that, the course of our lives change forever. We need to dance our way through life.
There is something in everyones life that makes it a little harder to make it through the day, we pass by each other not knowing where people get their bread or if they even eat. We don’t know who has stayed in each others lives and who has gone. This doesn’t just apply to strangers it applies to our friends and loved ones too. Friends sat next to me on a daily basis for years thinking I was the happiest person on this planet and not a single one of them including my very best friend new the trials I had been dealing with and how close to the edge I was.
We don’t know who goes to bed hungry, who sleeps on a floor and we don’t know which one of our friends could possibly be on the edge. We need be mindful that not everyone is dancing their way through life. Some need a partner, someone who can make a duet of it to help them along.
World Flip
My sophomore and junior year of high school I was put into a special math class. Our math class had 6 people, no joke! And that was on a good day if everyone showed up. It was called "Math 3 Light" and I am so bad at math it's not even funny, when I read the 3 I got concerned thinking it would be advanced.
The class took me by surprise and I made some really amazing friends along the way. Life long friends that I will never forget, two of which I still remain friends with today (2023) Jerika Foster and Cheyenne Bagley. The 3 of us were a riot…..we caused all sorts of trouble in that class (sorry Mrs. Irwin)! Oh boy, I would stand on my chair trying to figure out an answer while Jerika would be listening to scream-o, concentrated on her math work ROCKING OUT at the same time while wondering and asking why the heck we had to be there! Then there was Cheyenne and well... Chey wasn't fond of math but damn, she loved her face and she ADORED McDonalds' nuggets! The girl would come from dance class with a box of make up, hair ties, and I swear she even had a curling iron once WHICH SHE PLUGGED IN and did her beautiful hair, eating nugs while we learned crappy math! The three of us got along because we didn't get along with math, and that's how our relationship grew through the year. I think we even cheated off of each other at one point which made zero sense because neither one of us could figure out an equation, bottom line we were three peas in a pod and our favorite thing was being our selves and we loved making our teacher laugh with a good dance session. I once turned on a Michael Jackson song on my phone and you would of thought the three of us were the Jackson five, we were just having the time of our life and that's how it was with us in that class. If we were mad about a math problem, we would at least have to dance before finishing the problem. Especially Cheyenne!
Junior year an occurrence of events happened within the course of 2 weeks. Events that changed our lives forever. It started like a domino effect with me. I got in a severe car crash down little cottonwood canyon, ended up with a concussion, a messed up back, PTSD, and more crap. I didn't get checked until a few days after the reck (never do that always get checked there and then) and regretted it. My PTSD was so bad - I couldn't sit in a car…go near a car.. get in a car… drive a car…. listen to a car…be driven in a car…. hear high pitched squeals….tires scrape the pavement…. loud crashing noises. The list goes on and go, I'd experience these and go into shock or have a complete anxiety attack. I'll never forget my first anxiety attack. It felt like I was dying, and to make it all better it happened right before a performance for a freshman orientation. I was singing a solo and heard a huge squeal noise from what seemed to be the mic right before I went out…..took a deep breath got in my character, forgot about it, performed, and when I came off stage….it hit me. I didn’t feel safe. I felt like everything was closing in on me and I began to struggle with my breath. I couldn’t feel my legs and my back felt like it was about to fall off, the fist person I wanted automatically was one of my very best friends. In this moment another good friend of mine was trying to calm me down like the great soul that he is. I just wanted to have peace and not feel as if I was being enclosed. My mom came backstage and got me. My dad gave me a blessing when I got home and carried me inside, I couldn't walk with how dizzy I was.
The recovering from that crash was bad I had a harder time speaking. I used to speak really slow for some reason due to the concussion it was a hue concern of my doctors. For the first few days I would stare a walls and have absolutely no thought, it scared my friends and my family because I didn't recognize that I was doing it. It was a scary experience, and it took me a long time to recover from it. But during my recovery life between the math peas got harder.
A few days after my crash…Jerika got into a car crash at the school. She was bruised and her wrist was hurt along with her hand. Her hand was in a brace of some sort for a bit and she struggled with writing. Jerika was FIRE and after the accident she came into class furious, telling us the whole story... all 6 of us! She was hit by a girl that was going way too fast in the area but thankfully Jerika was safe with some minor injuries. After our unfortunate events we hoped for people to drive more carefully, and for safety in general with driving.
A few days later, I was laying in bed my phone was on silent. I got up to go grab something and took my phone with me seeing several missed calls and texts from Jerika. My heart was beating out of my chest and I knew something was very wrong. I'll never forget that moment. I went to the kitchen after reading the text messages with unbelief.
In May of 2015 Our beautiful Cheyenne got in a fatal car crash, and died on impact.
We sobbed, we still sob. Our hearts were all very torn! We didn't know that all those wonderful moments we had with Chey would be our last. Cheyenne was so loving, we were truly blessed to spend our last moments in a math class with the one person who presented the best example of how to dance your way through life. Cheyenne Bagley.
No matter what type of day Cheyenne was having she would come into class, and show us all that we can turn anything into positivity with a little bit of music, no matter what it may be: Friends, teachers, or hard assignment. Cheyenne gave a loving example of what it means to dance through life! How to get through the hard times with just by being yourself. By trusting your heart that you can do hard things every day.
So never go a day being ungrateful for what you have, never go a moment not realizing the joys that live among you. I will always dance my way through life for Cheyenne and others. I will try my best to be the example that Cheyenne was. Loving, free, happy, and full of light. I hope you'll do the very same!
Love every moment
Cherish every memory
And keep dancing through life.
We love you Cheyenne and we miss you every day. Save some chicken nuggets and make up for us when we get up there and then we can dance.
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