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SHOCK: World-renowned ballerina Michaela DePrince dies at age 29 (Original Post) BlueWaveNeverEnd Sep 14 OP
-- bucolic_frolic Sep 14 #1
... SamKnause Sep 14 #2
... 2naSalit Sep 14 #3
With very deepest sympathy.... GeoWilliam750 Sep 14 #4
When I heard about her story 5 years ago I was so moved. I bought the book about Tadpole Raisin Sep 14 #5
Thank you for sharing this excerpt with us. I will have to reuest this book niyad Sep 14 #10
Heartbreaking. So sorry to all her friends, family, and AllyCat Sep 14 #6
... Alice Kramden Sep 14 #7
Ballerina bromeando Sep 14 #8
: onecaliberal Sep 14 #9
So young Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Sep 14 #11
yes. and her mother died 2 days prior BlueWaveNeverEnd Sep 14 #12
Strange early morning rain Sep 21 #13
. . . . . . . Judi Lynn Sep 24 #14

Tadpole Raisin

(1,561 posts)
5. When I heard about her story 5 years ago I was so moved. I bought the book about
Sat Sep 14, 2024, 05:51 AM
Sep 14

Last edited Sat Sep 14, 2024, 07:01 AM - Edit history (1)

her on Amazon: Taking Flight.

This is gut wrenching! Sympathy to her family and friends. Whatever she was put on this earth to do, she did it and more in her short life.


Edited to add this Amazon book excerpt:

In Africa my papa loved the dusty, dry winds of the Harmattan, which blew down from the Sahara Desert every December or January. “Ah, the Harmattan has brought us good fortune again!” he would exclaim when he returned from harvesting rice. I would smile when he said that because I knew that his next words would be “But not as good a fortune as the year when it brought us Mabinty . . . no, never as good as that!”

My parents said that I was born with a sharp cry and a personality as prickly as an African hedgehog. Even worse, I was a girl child--and a spotted one at that, because I was born with a skin condition called vitiligo, which caused me to look like a baby leopard. Nevertheless, my parents celebrated my arrival with joy.

When my father proclaimed that my birth was the high point of his life, his older brother, Abdullah, shook his head and declared, “It is an unfortunate Harmattan that brings a girl child . . . a worthless, spotted girl child, one who will not even bring you a good bride-price.” My mother told me that my father laughed at his brother. He and Uncle Abdullah did not see eye to eye on almost anything.

My uncle was right in one respect: in a typical household in the Kenema District of southeastern Sierra Leone, West Africa, my birth would not have been cause for celebration. But our household was not typical. First of all, my parents’ marriage had not been arranged. They had married for love, and my father refused to take a second wife, even after several years of marriage, when it appeared that I would be their only child. Secondly, both of my parents could read, and my father believed that his daughter should learn to read as well.

niyad

(120,324 posts)
10. Thank you for sharing this excerpt with us. I will have to reuest this book
Sat Sep 14, 2024, 08:21 AM
Sep 14

from my library today. A truly remarkable woman, a shini g beacon of hope.

AllyCat

(17,144 posts)
6. Heartbreaking. So sorry to all her friends, family, and
Sat Sep 14, 2024, 07:04 AM
Sep 14

Colleagues. May all the next generations looking at photos of her in dance magazines, be inspired and seek their dreams, no matter the odds.

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