The Dress

I have a dress, a once in a life time dress.  I wore it for really dressy DAR functions.  It made heads turn and made me feel like a Queen.  It has been hanging in my closet, well protected for many many years until recently when I brought it out to see if I could still fit into it for a special event which is upcoming.  I couldn't.  My heart hurt for the whole day.  Another part of my life gone forever.  As long as I could fit in " the dress" I could still be young and wonderful, but the reality of having to face time passing and body aging was very hard to deal with again.

I am still slender, but after dealing with breast cancer I have been reshaped, not that I haven't gained a few pounds, but the shape is why it doesn't fit anymore.  The pounds can come off, the shape is there to stay. Now, in defense of the shape change, I am still alive to have remorse and to smile at myself for my vanity.  As a teen I was an ugly duckling.  I was basically covered with "zits", my front teeth protruded and I was taller than my classmates, especially the boys.  It was a tough life and the bullying followed me from first grade through junior high.  By high school I had learned to be more confident and didn't pay much attention to them so they left me alone most of the time. 

I definitely "blossomed" in college, fell in love, married and had a fairly wonderful life until the loss of my love in an accident which left me a widow at age 44 with three children, two almost grown and one teen at home. As life progressed, I learned for the first time in my life that I could do it.  My sons finished college and went their way and my daughter and I grew close and traveled, played and cried together. I have three amazing children and they still are amazing.  After ten years I married the only other man that was ever in my life and am happier than I have a right to be.  So coming back to "the dress", as I look at it memories flood into my brain and my heart swells with all the love and warmth I have shared with others while possessing my wonderful dress.  It represents who I was and who I am and who I will become as the days lengthen.  I will now pass it on to someone I have come to admire and appreciate and even love so she will be able to own "the dress" and hopefully have it be a wonderful influence on her life as it was on mine.  I only hope it fits!