The Dress From Hell

When my daughter was little, first grade size, I decided in order to be a good mom I should try my hand at sewing her some cute dresses. After all, I had taken home economics in high school and made myself a stylish, well-put-together jumper with the help of my teacher and a Simplicity pattern. After that success, my mom promptly bought me a portable Singer for my next birthday with only a little whining from yours truly. But then, with a few attempts at more intricate patterns, my interest waned, and the Singer was lugged from home to college to married life with very little use.

But now I had a daughter, a real live guinea pig, um, model, on which to try my brilliant sewing ability. You should know that I am not a patient person. I am also endowed with more confidence than real know-how, but no matter. When I decide something, I am ready to do it. I did not have any little-girl patterns, but I had plenty of little-girl dresses. Why not use one of them for a pattern? And material? Well, how about those pretty yellow print curtains that would not work on any of the windows where we lived now? Why take the time to shop for patterns and material when I could improvise and get started right away?

I have to say that little dress I made looked divine, on and off my daughter. No one could have done a better sewing job. It hung perfectly, I hemmed it to match the same length as its real dress pattern, and when my daughter tried it on, the fit could not have been better. I was so proud I could hardly wait for her to wear it to school the next day.

I made her stay in her jammies until after breakfast so there would be no chance of a food catastrophe at the last minute. Then I slipped my beautiful creation over her head and tied some pretty yellow ribbons in her hair. I helped with her coat so as not to muss anything, and we were on our way to Allen Frear Elementary. It was so cold but the school was close, and the car heater barely had time to warm up before we were there. At the doors, my beautifully dressed daughter hopped out and mumbled something about an itch around her neck, and I thought, oh no, not those horrible hives again. But we hadn’t had strawberries since last summer.

“It’s probably just some chapping from the cold weather, honey. Go ahead in and show everybody your new dress. Love you, Sweetie. See you in a while.”

And I drove home, glowing in my proudness. Remember that saying, from the Bible I think, about pride coming before a fall?

Hardly an hour had passed when my phone rang.

This was my end of the conversation.

“Yes, this is her mom.”

“Yes, I did.”

“What problem?”

“I’ll be there right away.”

It seems my poor daughter was one red mass of itching from her neck to her legs. When she told her teacher I had made her a new dress from curtains, Mrs. Bickling suspected fiberglass to be the cause of the problem.

I hurried back to the school and picked up a sad-looking little girl who now had a coat on with no dress underneath. My masterful creation was stuffed in a paper bag never to be worn again.

My poor itchy daughter spent the balance of the day in a cool baking soda bath until she looked like the proverbial prune, but at least she wasn’t bright red anymore and the itching had eased. Our doctor prescribed some cream and antihistamine and by the next day, she was her normal pale blond self and back in school with a hilarious show and tell story.

I wondered why I hadn’t itched when I was making the dress, and I posed this question to our doctor. Apparently, some people are not allergic to fiberglass, and I was one of them. The only negative effect on me was damage to my pride and a quick end to my renewed interest in sewing.

Another Thanksgiving

The following true story is really about thanks giving, about receiving and knowing how to accept a gift.

Seeing all the decorations in stores for Thanksgiving brings back the memory of a particular one. It was early November of 1993. My husband and my employer ganged up on me to make an appointment with a dermatologist about a mole on my temple that looked suspicious to them. They wouldn't give up, and I finally decided to go.

The doctor barely glanced at the mole before telling me I needed to see a surgeon right away. She made the appointment for that same afternoon, something I thought impossible. The plastic surgeon echoed her words. The very next day he removed the mole and the surrounding tissue and did a skin graft. Just before Thanksgiving I received the lab report. The mole was indeed an invasive malignant melanoma, but thankfully the surrounding tissue was clear.

I had a huge bandage (it seemed huge, anyway) and some stitches. I was very thankful for loved ones and dear friends who would not take no for an answer.

The morning I went for the surgery everything was so poignant. I remember the chill in the air as we raised the garage door. In fact, I can almost feel it right now, the feeling was so intense. As I looked outside, moving soundlessly through the sky, and huge because it was so close, I saw the Goodyear Blimp, in town for the football game the next day. The quietness of it and the chill in the air steadied me somehow.

My daughter had come from a little over eighty miles away to go to the doctor with us. She only had one child at the time, my grandson, Jimmy, who was 2 years old. Of course, she left him at home with his dad. When we got back home from the surgeon’s, she wanted to stay and cook Thanksgiving dinner for us the next day, but all I could think about was the pain I was feeling and how my son-in-law must be climbing the walls by now with Jimmy. So I emphatically said "no", and Jim and I spent a lonely Thanksgiving eating chicken noodle soup.

My point is...why couldn't I have accepted the gift my daughter wanted to give? What a wonderful Thanksgiving it could have been, but I was stubborn and thought I would be putting everyone to a lot of unnecessary trouble. The important thing I overlooked was the happiness it would have given my daughter to be doing something for her mom. She was trying to show her love and support for me, and I actually refused it

I was always taught to give is better than to receive, but now I wonder at the truthfulness of that. Perhaps, to receive a gift can be giving a gift as well. And sometimes it is better to receive than to give. Many times, I think, it’s one and the same thing.