One of my mom’s virtues was that she would sit and talk to you about anything. For as long as you want and until it was decided and you felt comfortable in a decision. On the flip side, it was also one of her vices. Too quickly does discussion become monologuing. And yet I’m really missing that piece of her right now.

Our daughter will be making her First Communion this spring, and I’m anxious nervous thrilled excited about the thought of her special day. And with her day comes a dress, of course. It’s the whole reason I wanted to learn to sew well – to be able to make special occasion dresses for her who delights in pink frills and swishy skirts. So, I’m nearly as anxious nervous thrilled excited about the dress. lol

I was surprised to hear that parish we are with is actually encouraging families to downplay the whole white dress bonanza. Friends have told me that there are people in town who will be $10,000 on an ensemble and the festivities while another child barely has the means to be there at all. So the advice about “it doesn’t have to be a white dress, only Sunday best” really is more about charity than anything else. The materialistic side of me is sad. The St. Clare in me is very very pleased.

How do the two connect – missing Mom and a silly dress? Well, I’ve been endlessly debating how fancy, how white, which pattern, which jacket, which color and fabric in my head and to my poor husband for at least month now. I so wish Mom were here to talk to.

When I was a kid, we spent hours in fabric stores together. I was totally bored most of the time, and she took forever to shop for anything, so I don’t really know how that turned into me getting completely girlish-giddy at the sight of Fabricland but I did and do. My mom was often pushy and controlling, but she and I had the same tastes in style and design. We could pick out the same favorite top in a given store, only hers would be blue and mine red.

I thought that I had decided on a plan of action over the weekend, but when I got into the store yesterday, lol and behold the new pattern books are out! The mind reels – mass chaos – which one, which one? That’s why I miss Mom today.

“I missed my mother, terribly, when I graduated from college… I missed her when I got my first job promotion and wanted to share the news with someone who’d be proud. I miss her when I’m sick and when I’m lonely, when I can’t remember what works best on insect bites, and when nobody else cares how rude the clerk in the post office was to me. Whether she actually would have fed me homemade chicken soup or mailed me cotton balls and calamine lotion if she were alive isn’t really the issue. To be honest, my mother never once in her life cooked chicken soup that didn’t come from a can. It’s the fact that I can’t ask her for it that makes me miss her all over again.”

~ excerpt from Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman

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