Remembering...

I've been spending a lot of time looking through the photo albums from when we were kids lately because I've been working on a few projects.  While I was looking yesterday I found a picture of me on my blessing day.  I know that the dress we buried Colette in was the same one that My sister Tamara and I were both blessed in but I don't think I ever remember seeing a photo of me in it.  Nor did it occur to me that there would be one and to go looking for it.  Of course seeing that little photo made my cry.  The last time I touched that little dress was when I placed it on my sweet Colette before placing her in her tiny casket.  And of course it reminded me of the sweet and wonderful story that my sister wrote about this perfect dress.  So I thought I would take a few minutes and put up both photos,  One of me in it on my blessing day, and one 31 years later of our Sweet Colette in it on her funeral day.  Along with the story Tamara wrote and a photo of the dress itself.

The Little White Dress

Tamara Jones

Thirty-five years ago a little white dress was made. A grandmother’s gentle hands lovingly made it to be used as a blessing dress. It was used for one granddaughter and then again for another granddaughter three years later.

The grandmother that made that dress is my grandmother. The granddaughters were my sister and I. After the dress was used for my sister and myself our mother carefully packed it away. Many years later it was brought out again. My oldest daughter was blessed in it and the little white dress seemed to be a dress that would tie generations together. A mother made it for her daughter to bless her baby girls in. The daughter then passed it on to her daughter who used it for her daughter. I then passed it on to my sister so she could have a chance to use this special dress for her daughters. Unfortunately, big babies seem to run in the family and the little white dress has sat unused for twelve years.

While the little white dress was made with joyous and happy occasions in mind, sometimes endings don’t always turn out the way we think they will. None of us would have even thought that this dress would have a very special last use. My sister will use this dress for her daughter whose short life has touched us all. Sweet little Colette will be the last person to wear the dress. It will cover her tiny body almost as if she is wrapped in the arms of her mother, her grandmother, her great-grandmother, her aunt, and her cousin. All who, at one time used the little white dress.

While this is the end for the little white dress, how blessed we are to know that this is not the end for Colette. She has been born into an eternal family and those eternal ties, not the little white dress, are what hold generations together.