My Prom Dress

Can you remember your senior prom dress?    I sure do.

It was the morning of my Senior prom and I still had no dress to wear. This was the most important dance of the year. Every girl wants to have a new dress to wear, one that will stand out as something special.. It was a time she could feel like a princess and I was no exception. However, my parents had five children and they could not give each child a new dress or outfit every time there was an event. My father told me there was nothing wrong with the dress I wore last year, after all I only wore it once, so I did not need a new one.

I went to school that day devastated. I would be so embarrassed if all my friends saw me in the same dress again.    During school that day, the Prom was all anyone talked about all day. They talked about how they would wear their hair, the new shoes they bought and how they loved the new dress they would be wearing and so on and so on. I stayed pretty much quiet. I did not want to let anyone know I would be wearing the same dress I wore last year.  I figured a way around this dilemma. I told my friends I wasn't feeling well and wasn't sure I would be going to the Prom. Boy, I sure put a lot of importance into that dress, didn't I?  What choice did I have. I was sixteen and did not have my priorities in check. Talk about what's important in life!. It wasn't the fact of having a new dress or not, it was what my friends would think.

As I was riding home from school I began thinking about the whole thing. Should I stay home just because of that? Would staying home from the Prom be worse than wearing the same dress I wore the year before? The fact of the matter was, the dress I had last year, was lovely. How many would really notice,  and why should I even care. By the time I reached the driveway, I had decided I was going to the Prom and I would make the best of this situation. After all, it was the last  major high shool dance of the year.  I would never have this opportunity again.

I open the front door and slowly walked down the short hall to the kitchen looking for my mother and then made my way into the living room. In the middle of the living room, on my mother's dress form, was the most beautiful gown I had ever laid eyes on. My mother had taken wedding satin ,from an old job she had done, and designed and made this dress just for me. She had spent her whole day making sure I would have something special. I could not believe my eyes or my heart.

At that point I didn't care whether I went to the Prom or not, I was a Princess and I had the most wonderful mother in the world.