Service Through a Dress

I decided I wanted to start chronicling (ummm is that the weirdest word in the history of words?) some stories and memories about my mom.

It has been almost 4 years since she passed away, which is so crazy to me.  I haven't spoken to my mom in 4 years!  I still have her in my favorites on my phone, though her number now belongs to someone else. When she first passed away, I found myself reaching for my phone multiple times a day to call or text her, and I still can't bear to delete her information.  It's almost like that would be forgetting her or something.  Every once in a while I'll go look at her Facebook page, too, just to remind myself that there is still evidence of her, that her life hasn't completely disappeared.  It's the weirdest thing to think about her being gone.  How is it that someone is just not here anymore?  One day they are living, breathing, worrying, and the next, nothing.  I honestly don't know how people get through losing a loved one without a belief in an afterlife.

So.  Stories about my mom.  I've told this one to some people, but haven't written it down.  Here goes.

When I was a senior in high school I was really really busy.  I was in a lot of AP classes (like honors classes), I was in ASB (student government), I had a part time job (as the janitor at a dental office, now if you want to talk about glamorous...), and I was on a competitive club cheerleading team that practiced 3 times a week an hour away from my house.  I also attended early morning seminary (a class put on by my church where we studied books of scripture) that started at 5:45 AM.  That's right.  Needless to say I was exhausted pretty much all the time.  Senior Ball was coming up, and I was stressed because I had no time to go look for a dress, and in my 17 year old world that was a catastrophe.

I came home from school one day, two weeks before the dance exhausted as usual.  I walked in the front door to find formal dresses hung all over the living room.  Beautiful fabric, beautiful colors, sparkles and sequins.  As I sat there confused and looking around, my mom explained to me that she knew I was so busy and stressed, so she had gone to the mall that day to find me a dress.  She went to store after store, and looked at dress after dress, and bought 10 or 12 dresses that she thought I would like.  She brought them home and set them up for me so I could try them on and choose one.  She was like my own personal shopper, and my living room was transformed into my very own specialized dress shop.  I was so thankful that my sweet mom took time out of her own busy schedule (which certainly included things that actually mattered) to serve me and help me find a dress.  She could have easily said, "It's just a dress, it doesn't matter.  It's one dance that you will soon forget about."  Instead, she was wise enough to know that even though the dance didn't matter, I mattered.  Even though finding the right dress wasn't important, I was important.

I picked out a dress I loved from the ones she chose, and she returned the others the next day.   Though I do not remember much about that dance, I do remember the love of my sweet mother, and how I felt that love through a dress.