May 11, 2019

Today, in memory of my amazing, caring and beautiful Mom, I would like to share a story that I probably haven’t thought about in at least fifty years. It popped into my head the other night as I was struggling to fall asleep. When that happens, I know it is a sign that someone wants me to share it.

I attended Catholic school my entire life. As young children both I and my older sister attended Catholic elementary school. Needless to say, our entire family and those of our friends, were very involved with the church. It was a very important part of our lives.

I was seven years old and in the second grade. Every year on Easter morning, all of us school children would be very involved in the very early Easter Sunday Mass. All of the girls as I recall would take part in a procession to celebrate  the Resurrection of Jesus. I’m not sure about the older girls, but that year I remember, the younger girls like myself would be wearing a new dress which had to be sewn. There was this wonderful older woman who was an excellent seamstress, and she only lived about four blocks from our house. My Mom made arrangements with her to sew this dress for me. It would consist of two pieces, a yellow underlay like a slip, and a white/off-white dress just sheer enough to see the yellow color of the slip underneath.

So one evening, either my sister or my Dad ( it’s getting a little harder to exactly remember ) took me to the woman’s house for a fitting. My Mom worked evenings. When the woman gave me the dress to try on, I quickly realized she got the colors mixed up. The dress was yellow and the slip was white. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell this lovely woman that it was wrong. But as soon as I was with my Dad, I burst into tears! My poor Dad not knowing what to do, somehow got in touch with my Mom at work. Needless to say my Mom had to listen to her hysterical seven year old tell her about the dress disaster. For me I’m sure it felt like the end of the world. Of course my Mom got upset and came home from work. She called the seamstress and straightened everything out. I really didn’t know what correcting the dress entailed. However, on that Easter morning I happily wore my beautiful new procession dress. That was my Mom!!

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