Who's dancing, and why are they tapping those toes?

My feet move of their own accord. The music, pulling them from their stationary place on the foot pedals, into a rhythm that's meant for dancing. My body aches to get up. But I still can't move the way I want to.
I glance down at my leathery hands. Thick veins and age spots mar my once smooth, pale skin. Calluses brush against my fingertips as I fist them. Skin stretching across bone. Rigid and frail at the same time.
My wheelchair has held me hostage for too long.
Taking a deep breath, I will myself away. Away from this earthly chain. I must be free. Free to move as I once moved. Free to sing, dance, lift my spirit into the skies. How many more years must I wait?
My wish is endless. I've wished it a thousand times. Why haven't I learned this small lesson? No matter what we wish for, life is a reality we can't escape. And sometimes, reality stinks.
The picture frames on the wall smile down at me. Smiles from wedding days that were ages ago. Children, now grown and scattered across the globe, living their lives as mine comes to an end.
I can feel it. The end. It's closer each day. I just wish I knew when it would finally rear it's merciful head. I'm tired of suffering. Tired of feeling like a useless bag of bones. That's all I am now. Dispensable in the world's eyes.
If the nurse's rough, rushed routine that makes me feel more like a burden every day doesn't prove that, I don't know what does. It's like she's waiting for me to die so she can write me off. Put a check mark next to my name. Like I'm some task she's finally finished. I'm nothing. Not a real person anymore. My opinions, feelings, needs don't matter. A menace to society that only takes instead of contributes. Guess the seventy years of hard labor counted for nothing. 
My husband abandoned me and this world long before my body took a turn for the worst. In some ways, I'm happy he's not here to see me. Maybe, if he still sees me as the vibrant young lady I was, I can pretend to be that too.
It's been fourteen years. Fourteen years since I've seen him. Fourteen long years since we danced and sang together. Those memories are as old and dusty as I am. But now, they surface in remarkable clarity. Every detail shimmering in my mind. Replaying like I'm living them again. Their beautiful. Breathtaking, as I take in every moment.
I'm whisked into a memory of love. It's our wedding song. The one where my husband got down on one knee, put into words what mirrored my heart, then asked me to marry him. We whispered the words into each others' ears before we left the dance floor that night. The night that everything changed, and I discovered what it meant to truly love, to live. For they are one in the same. 
Life. It's so simple. Yet we try to complicate it. Why? What is wrong with simplicity?
Our song is coming to an end. I imagine his hand guiding me through the steps, not only in dance, but in life. My spirit yearns to be with him again. To see his eyes light up the way they do when he's about to tell a joke. To feel those calluses that match mine. We're a team. And I yearn to pull together again. I pray I will be yoked by his side for eternity.
My lungs give one last pull of air as I close my eyes, and sing the last line of the song. I draw out the words, ending long after the song has finished. Because I want this to be my song. The song I sing when all else is forgotten. Because just as people get old and die, so do songs. But this song will never die. I will keep it alive.
When I open my eyes, it's his face I see. Real. Solid. Welcoming. And that smile. Oh, that smile. My heart lurches in my chest, stumbling to a stop.
Tears run down my cheeks. And why shouldn't they? For just as we cry on earth, the angels weep in heaven. I lift my hands to his face and brush away the tears that have made tracks down his smile lines. He places his hands over mine. Warm. Whole. He's here. He's really here.
"Welcome home." His voice is better than I remember.
I lift myself out of my chair, and for the first time in ten years, I stand on my own and walk with my husband toward the waiting crowd.
I'm home. And earth was just a short journey.