ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Md. — Dance, music and church, have always been a part of Natalie Thomas’ life. Thomas has been performing liturgical dance, a style of sacred dance since she was 14. She began in her late grandfather’s Baltimore church.
That life, however, almost ended. In June 2020, she had a debilitating stroke while making breakfast for her family before work.
“I felt this pain, right here in my neck, but you know as women, we kinda just shrug stuff off,” Thomas says, rubbing the spot. “I went in my room and took some Tylenol. Hey, Imma be fine. Right? I went into the kitchen. I went to pull out the aluminum foil, but my hand felt weird. I went into the living room, and I still felt this pain. It was a pain that just grabbed me and… when I went to sit down, I fell to the floor.”
She’d had a stroke, caused by a blood clot on the right side of her brain near her neck. Thomas was 40.
“The next day, I remember I was worse than what I was,” Thomas says. “I couldn’t see out of my right eye. My speech was ridiculous. Couldn’t move my right side. They wanted to send me to rehabilitation. But I’m so grateful for my support system. They fought for me.”
They brought her home. The doctors told them she would need around-the-clock care.
“I couldn’t do anything,” she says. “I could not feed myself, go to the bathroom… [or] put my clothes on. I lost my memory. I didn’t even know who my mom, anybody, really was. It was very challenging.”
She got physical therapy at her Crofton home. They didn’t have to search for a therapist, though. They called Dr. Monique Caruth, who had been her husband’s therapist after he had a massive heart attack just a year prior.
“When I met Natalie, she had several challenges,” Caruth says. “Her balance was not the best. She needed assistance to get in and out of bed, get to the toilet, and even the stairs were difficult. But one thing about Natalie, she had faith. She had a lot of courage.”
Thomas had a couple of setbacks. Her mom, one of her caregivers, died six months afterward. And in 2022, she had a mini stroke.
Still, she kept battling back. She kept working with Caruth’s team to regain strength. And she went from wheelchair, to walker, to cane.
“It’s good to see that she got back to even wearing heels and doing what she loved doing, and working,” Caruth says. “It was a joy to see. It was a miraculous recovery.”
At home, Natalie does puzzles to help with brain function and hand-eye coordination.
Yet, dancing again was never in the picture, until her church needed a liturgical dancer for its women’s conference.
“Without thinking, I said, “I’ll do it,’” she says. “When I got in the car, I said, ‘What are you thinking about, girl? You really haven’t done any dances from beginning to end.’ Last time I tried, I was in bed for a week. I had to use my cane again.”
“She was saying she didn’t think she could do it,” says her husband, Isaiah. “She thought something bad would happen. I just went against all that. I just said, ‘You can do it. You can do it.’”
On April 19, at Perfecting Ministries Church in Glen Burnie, she did just that. For the first time, almost four years after her first stroke, she danced. Thomas performed a five-minute routine. Her colorful robe flowed as she swayed and bowed and twirled.
“I heard someone say, ‘She’s dancing again.’ And I heard someone else say, ‘Wow.’ Afterward I got some messages that said, ‘Wow, you blessed me, you encouraged me.’ I can see that it blessed people and that encouraged me, so I’m very grateful.”
While she’s still recovering, she hopes her story will help others.
“I truly believe that I am a miracle, a walking, talking miracle,” she says. “That it happened to me, but it was for somebody else to see.”
