The Wedding Dress

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With Halloween being around the corner, my N,who misses the excitement of Halloween ( South Africa doesn't celebrate Halloween the way we did in Canada.) has made some forays into the great big old dress up box. One item she found has made me stop and ponder. MY WEDDING DRESS. I admit, I kept it. Is that bad?

It's yellowed ( just like I remember my mother's was, when I was a little girl) and has a slight moth bally wiff to it. Lacy, with poofy sleeves and lots of pearl like beads hand stitched to it with love.
There has been a large debate raging inside me. What do I do with it? AND why do I still have that thing? At R500 a session I don't really have the cash to thrash that out with my therapist.

I feel an incredible reluctance to get rid of it. It's so tiny, it's a monument to my rake thin past.WOW! I really fitted into it.I have fond memories of the anticipation I had of marrying the man of my dreams and the creation of the wedding dress, one dress fitting at a time. It testifies of a mother's love as she was there with me at each step of the way. I love you mom and thanks.It also serves as a reminder that not all dreams come true. It really was also one of the happiest days of my life. Despite the heartbreaking years that followed.

We can have incredibly wonderful moments in time. They will for the most part become etched in our memories side by side with the gut wrenching ones, but do we have to keep the clothes we were wearing at the time? I don't have the hospital gown I was wearing when I gave birth to any of my five wonderful children so do I really need the wedding gown?

My final answer is, no. Perhaps getting rid of the gown will take me one step closer to the healing I seek. Of course my next thoughts center around how to dispose of the gown.I could have one spectacular bonfire and toss it on the pyre or bury it somewhere with a roughly hewn cross and some apt epitaph scrawled on the cross bar.   In the spirit of recycling and the whole green revolution, my thoughts are of course turned to ways one could recycle the dress.

 I  must give thanks to a wonderful gentleman blogger who has put a lot more thought than I into the art of recycling wedding dresses. His wife left him after 12 years of marriage, her parting gift to him, as she rounded up all the cd's and dvd's, was her wedding dress. He has spent over a year masterfully finding nearly 101 uses for his wifes wedding dress. You should take a look at his side-splitting blog. The blog is called "My ex-wifes wedding dress.
myexwifesweddingdress.com

I will keep you posted on what I decide ....


This hammock looks pretty comfy!