When I was sixteen years old, my mother dug out a dress that she had put me in when I came home from the hospital as an infant. I could not believe how tiny it was, and I could not believe that she had kept it that long. She had put it away in acid free paper, and it looked much like it probably looked the day she put it on me for the very first time. She told me that she wanted me to have it, even if I’d probably never use it for my own daughter. She said I might buy new clothes for my kids, of course, but every little girl should have a pink dress, and this one was mine.
I have put that pink dress away, and once in a while when I go into my closet looking for something, I find it. I always have to take a few minutes to get it out and look at it. Though it is not in the style of today, I still think it is very pretty and perhaps this is because of the meaning behind it. I can imagine my mom putting the pink dress on me when I was so tiny, and how she must have felt looking at me for the first time while I was wearing it. She was 19 when she had me, but she knew she wanted me for a very long time.
Now that I have my own daughter, I understand about the pink dress. I make sure that my daughter has a new one each year, and I love to see her in that color. Though I love many colors, there is something infinitely feminine about the color pink, and my daughter always tells me that she feels like a princess when she wears that color. When we go out somewhere special, she always wants to wear a pink dress. I guess something about me has rubbed off on her after all.
Though you probably won’t catch me in a pink dress today, that is not because of the color. I just don’t like to wear dresses. If I were one to wear them, I would imagine I would have at least one pink dress somewhere to have for when I wanted to dress up. However, until the day I decide that I want to wear dresses again, I guess I will have to settle for watching my daughter wear them. Luckily, that is good enough for me.
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