On a recent holiday visit to the family home where I grew up, I found my Junior Prom dress. I had been looking for it for a while now, and it had been moved from where I had seen it before. As I went through some things with a childhood friend of mine, I saw it tucked away where I hadn't expected it to be, and seeing it again brought back so many memories.
As I was sharing about it with another long time friend, I looked in my collection of photographs and found one of me in that dress on the day of the Prom. I am standing in the yard of the house where I grew up, and it is such a beautiful late spring going into early summer day with the lushness of greenery growing profusely all around.
Looking at that photograph I remembered so many details of the story of that dress, and it is a special one. My family was very poor, and I had been working from a very very young age to take care of and provide for myself. But Prom dresses are expensive and an extravagance, and I didn't know how I would ever afford one. There were two dresses we had from the 1950's that had belonged to my much older cousins, and though one fit me perfectly my cousin was shorter and the style of the time was shorter. My Mother and I brought the dress to a woman in town named Maria who did alternations, and she made a longer chiffon net overskirt for the dress. On a trip to Saks Fifth Avenue I found a pink beaded clutch bag and pink strappy patent leather sandals in the discount bin and racks and my outfit was complete. I don't remember how my Mother had met Maria, but she was lovely, and the way she made that vintage dress look, I felt like a princess.
On a beautiful afternoon and evening, God provided a dress for this Cinderella to go to the Prom, and as I remember this story I remember that we can be blessed in ways we are not expecting. A cast off dress from a cousin, a lovely neighbor who is creative with the ingenuity of her seamstress designs, discount rack shopping, and the ability to be grateful and allow God to provide in a way I wasn't expecting made this dress and the memory of it all the sweeter.
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