Rising Above

I love Dancing with the Stars in a BIG way!  It's week three and it also happens to be "Personal Stories" week, where the star gets to pick a song that relates to a personal story in their life. My absolute favorite dancer on the show is Maksim Chmerkovskiy.  This year Maks was paired with Kirstie Alley, and to be quite honest I was bummed.  Although, I like Kirstie Alley I didn't think they'd  have a chance to win until I saw her dance the first week ~ she was awesome.

Kirstie and Maks danced a beautiful rumba to the Ukuele version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  Her dance was tribute to her mother, who died after being hit by a drunk driver in the early '80s.  She talked about it being a time in her life where she had to overcome tragedy and adversity and to rise above. Her dance was beautiful, but unfortunately Maks' thigh gave out in the very beginning and he practically dropped her.  Despite that mishap they had an amazing and emotional finish and actually received praise from the judges.  Ironically head judge, Len Goodman told them "Dancing is a bit like life. It's about overcoming adversities," "You overcame it. You got up. . . and you came back stronger."

Definitely words to live by.