A Mother's Love

I numbingly stare at the dress hanging against the window, and only now on the day of my wedding, do I question my decision to not postpone it. It’s hard to imagine that a mere four weeks lie between today and the day I walked out of the fitting room to have her lace up the back of this very dress. Her dress. The dress she bought off the rack in the summer of 1983 for her July wedding. It was out of season, with its long sleeves and turtle-neckline, and only cost her seventy-five dollars — less than the amount it cost me recently to get it dry cleaned. The lace that held it together from top to bottom, and ruffle upon ruffle, was thin. It was a delicate, simple beauty. And today it is mine.

Initially it was assumed impossible that I would ever be able to wear it, due to the simple fact that my mother was at least two full sizes smaller, and four inches shorter than me when she got married at the age of nineteen. I had eleven years on this girl who walked down the aisle more than thirty-five years ago, and no reasonable diet would make me that small again. But I was insistent. I had to wear it for my own wedding. So we spent months with the tailor conjuring up ways to turn her beautiful, albeit outdated, dress into something that not only fit my body, but also my personality.

The long lace sleeves would stay. They were perfect for my January wedding in the cold Rocky Mountains and I loved that they were long enough to extend past my wrists. Underneath the ruffle draped along the chest was a soft sweetheart neckline. We chipped away at that and the bonus turtleneck to make way for a feminine, off the shoulder look. The layers of ruffles that began at the knees were articulately removed and sewed back on to the bottom, seamlessly creating more length for my long legs to stand behind. But all this rearranging did not help the fact that the dress was still too small and could not zip up past my lower back, no matter how deeply I inhaled. Then it clicked: cut away the zipper and make it backless. We added a string of lace to make it more of a corset in order to keep the sides from folding forward, and now it was perfect. I slipped into it and was immediately enveloped with certainty. Certainty with the dress; certainty with who I am; and certainty with the life I was choosing to step into while wearing this.

That certainty has become hazy. It’s not that I am uncertain about this marriage, I’ve known for well over two years that I want to spend the rest of my life with James. The uncertainty lies in the fact that I have ever only known who I am in light of her. She had been the truest sign of constancy, yet she was not going to be here today. We had taken care of all the wedding preparations and planned on coasting through the final month, so it seemed unreasonable to throw out a years worth of planning only to postpone the inevitable. Postponing the wedding wouldn’t bring her back. So I continue to stare at the dress - afraid to step into it. The joy I felt when I first tried it on after it had been finished with all the alterations has been severely questioned. That day was filled with innocence. That day did not know how it felt when the ground beneath you dissipated.

Her hands had been taken over by tremors and neuropathy for several years now and simple tasks such as holding a pen was difficult, so stringing together the corset back on a wedding dress was not easily done. But she did it that day in the tailor’s dressing room and she was supposed to be doing it today. How could she leave me three weeks before my wedding day? She was always there when I needed her. She was there stroking my hair as I cried over the first boy to break my heart. She was there when I scraped my knee after the training wheels went away. She was there on sick days, somehow making everything better just by letting me lean against her. She was there even when we were five thousand miles apart while I was studying abroad. Just the sound of her voice at the end of a tough day could alleviate worry. She was there before anyone else, even before my own awareness. And now she was gone.

Was I crazy for going through with this same date for the wedding? Why didn’t I just postpone it like everyone had suggested? How am I supposed to be joyful on what is supposed to be the happiest day of my life, while still grieving so much of my world being taken from me? But underneath all the valid reasons of postponing the wedding I knew that that is far from what mom would have wanted. She wanted this. And she would find some way of being here, wouldn’t she?

As a child I would flip through my mother’s wedding photo album thinking she was the prettiest person on the planet. I’d dream about the thought of it magically instilling that same beauty in me if I were ever to wear it. I didn’t realize at the time, but looking at those photos always stirred a curiosity about this woman I never actually knew. To me, she had always been Mom - the one who exists for the sole purpose of making sure her kids were well fed, well clothed, and well loved. This woman in the photo was her before she became Mom. Her, when all-nighters had more to do with red solo cups and loud music, and nothing to do with hushed lullabies and a teething infant. It was her, before all those long days of rearing four children took over her own personal interests. It was her before the slurred speech. Her, before the brain lesions and before the hand tremors. Her, before the disease.

Eighteen years of Multiple Sclerosis finally caught the whole of her. It snuck up sneakily; slowing her pace a little bit more each day until she simply did not wake up one morning. I was twelve when she had first received the diagnosis and I didn’t truly comprehend it. It was not as forthright as something like cancer. The diagnosis didn’t say when it would kill her, it simply stated it would kill her… “a very long time from now” my parents emphasized when explaining. So the protective gear in my pre-teen brain went up and I never let myself think of it taking her. It was a hidden sickness and I liked that it was invisible. I didn’t want to give it attention when she started needing to hold onto someone’s arm in order to walk. I chalked it up to "just growing old” when she progressed to using a cane at the age of forty-four. Each saved birthday card from her shows slightly more blurred handwriting as the years went on, and the messages in them held fewer and fewer sentences, but it was never something I chose to notice until later. We laughed off the random times she would slur her words until we simply grew accustomed to them. It started out slowly, but it ended up taking everything.

In spite of it all, she was always in good spirits, and laughed at everything. As it progressed the more childlike she became, which didn’t always sit well with the serious folks in their serious environments expecting her to behave seriously. She unabashedly let herself laugh at the smallest things, and did not bat an eye when others judged her for it. Throughout each of those eighteen years I never heard her once complain about her illness, and until recently I was naïve to the fact that MS caused pain in its bearers simply because she was always joyful.

There are times I remember her holding onto the brooch she kept pinned onto her purse a little more tightly than usual. It was an intriguing little barn owl made of pewter, no bigger than two inches. She had had it longer than any memory I possessed —a gift from her grandmother when she was younger, but the reason was always a mystery. Whenever anyone asked why it was so important to her she said it was because the barn owl was believed to be a symbol of hidden wisdom. It sees best in the darkness, when we cannot see clearly. It’s a reminder to trust that there is more to what we can see and understand. Looking back now I see that perhaps she clutched that pin a little more tightly during those times she felt the pain, and the times she wrestled with the uncertainty this hidden illness of hers brought. Perhaps she had found the hidden wisdom in this disease.

I snap back to the moment to realize I am about to be late to my own wedding. It is time to put on this dress and allow my bridesmaids to now take on the task of lacing me up. I slide it off the hanger and as I begin to step into it my leg is pricked by something. I look through and discover her little barn owl brooch gently pinned onto a strap. How? How did it get here? And when? I unpin it to find a little note scribbled in her unclear handwriting: "For your bouquet. Hold onto it whenever you can’t see clearly."

Tears soak through my previously perfectly applied waterproof mascara as I finish getting ready to walk down the aisle. This is all I needed. Just some sort of reassurance from her. It was more than enough to boost me into the dress and exhale as I am laced up. I gaze at myself in the mirror and am wrapped up in certainty once more with this dress. I am beautiful, but not because of the dress. I am beautiful because of the woman who wore it thirty-five years ago. I am beautiful because of the woman who raised me; who showed me what it meant to be courageous and find joy in the difficulties. I look down at my bouquet and ready myself to make my way down the aisle, while pressing my thumb along the ridges of her barn owl brooch. I know now, a mother’s love is one of the few things that can outlast death. She is an integral part to who I am and that is not something that can be taken from me. So as it turns out, she did not leave me three weeks before my wedding day. She is here in the brooch; here in the dress; and here in my reflection.