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Ich Will – “I will”

Part One

By Christine Trask

“Would you like to learn to dance the Tango?” Al Pacino says to Gabrielle Anwar as he mentions the name of the perfume she is wearing in the movie “Scent of a Woman.” What makes this movie so spectacular is that Al Pacino, completely blind, leads the young woman, Gabrielle, around the floor effortlessly.

I thought of one of my favorite movies, “Scent of a Woman,” when I met Marilyn Helleberg, a beautiful, slim, silvered-haired 73- year old woman of German descent and a mother of two sons, Brian and John, at Allstar Dance Studio in Naples, Florida. I marveled at her precision and graceful movement while she danced with her young Italian teacher Andrea Marta. You would never guess that Marilyn has one artificial eye and is a survivor of breast cancer.

Intrigued by Marilyn, I asked if we could get together. We walked the warm, white, sandy beaches of Naples and had lunch together at a corner table overlooking the turquoise-blue ocean of the Gulf. It was during our delightful conversation that Marilyn revealed to me her inner self.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Marilyn recalled that her desire to express herself through dance went back to her childhood days. She laughed when she remembered using the refrigerator door handle as her partner. Having come from an athletic and musical family, her parents wanted her to become a ballerina. In addition, her father encouraged her to take piano lessons; however, due to her shyness and a bit of German stubbornness, the family had to settle for her entertaining “refrigerator dancing.” Marilyn remembers their pleasure in watching her and was overjoyed with the attention she received. She considers this “dancing” as her first performance.

Marilyn and her husband John met at a social dance during her college years. It wasn’t until age 55 that she and her husband started taking ballroom dance lessons in Charlottesville, Virginia. Then at age 60 she started competing with a professional dancer from Nashville, Tennessee. It was during this time she was diagnosed with cancer and an infection in one of her eyes. One would think that these misfortunes would weaken Marilyn, but it was actually the source of her greatest strength. After the cancer was removed, she found that by working to overcome her shyness and health issues, she had a chance to reconfigure her life and told herself, “Ich Will” (or “I will”) become the best competitive ballroom dancer possible.

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