Every year I spend about two weeks at my great grandparent’s house during the summer. its a time where my 3 cousins and I come together and get to enjoy some quality
time together and with our great grandparents to me, grandparents to them, but i call them grandpa and grandma anyway. My cousins and I spend our time here well, often bored but we’ve always managed to find something to do. When we were younger we’d often act out different scenarios involving magic or fairytale like things, but now, at ages 18, 18, 16, and 15, we’ve grown out of that. We spend most our time playing pool, reading, or sipping tea outside.
It was a warm mid July summer night, sitting on the moss green velvet love seat I’ve sat on so many times before, next to my great grandma Mary Lou. I picked up the worn out brown photo album sitting on the coffee table just a few feet away from the love seat, and sat back down. Although I’ve seen the photos in this album before, this one never gets old for it is my favorite of the many photo albums collecting dust in this house. I open the cover and it spans across both mine and my grandmas legs. There is a newspaper article with a photo of my great grandparents on their wedding day. My grandma points out how they spelt my grandfathers name wrong, then I flip to the first page and there lays the most famous photo in our family. My grandfather never looked so handsome and my grandmother beautiful as ever. Although black and white, I imagine the photo in color Short deep red hair curled like you would see women in the 50’s, peach lips subtly showing a smile, soft rosy cheeks, bright blue squinty eyes, and the satin white dress with a train that has to be at least three feet long.
“You look just as gorgeous there as you do now grandma!” I spoke loudly to my
grandma because she’s hard of hearing.
“AHH! ee-gad!” She chuckled for a minute. I know she didn’t agree with my compliment but I surely did. I think she’s the most beautiful woman [c10] I’ve ever seen. Whether 20 or 75 years old, she still looks flawless to me.
“Do you still have your dress?” I asked her.
“Well yes, it’s in the back room. Why don’t I get it and you try it on? Heck I was about your size back then!” She replied, and my eyes lit up with excitement. This is an honor to me, and I couldn’t wait to put it on.
My grandma made her way to the back room where the dress was stowed away
in an old wooden chest. She came back out carrying the dress in its plastic covering keeping it away from harm. She unzipped it and handed me the dress. I walked with a skip in my step to the bathroom to try on the dress. It was snug around my waist, bust, and arms. The dress looks exactly like Sleeping Beauty’s. Long A-line shape, long sleeves with triangle like points at the ends coming to about the middle of the top of my hands, and a wide v shaped top just below my collar bones that spread to my shoulders revealing a tiny bit of shoulder. The off white satin was the smoothest fabric I’ve ever felt on my skin. I never wanted to take it off, I felt so beautiful.
“Oh, go show your grandfather he’d get a kick out of this!” My grandma told me.
So I did, I walked carefully to the living room lifting the dress just above my ankles so I wouldn’t step on it. Once I got to the carpet just in front of the long plaid couches, I twirled around a few times. “Wow! Fits you like a glove huh?” My grandpa chuckled and smiled. I went back into the front family room, grandma was sitting on the couch still. I told her thank you for letting me try it on, and that I’d hope to maybe wear it to my wedding if I could still fit it by that time. I didn’t want to take it off. My favorite part was the round little buttons going all down the back of the dress. The same kind of buttons I imagined I wanted on my wedding dress. Decades later I’m surprised that the dress is still in our family, happy as ever though, I couldn’t help but imagine what the rest of my wedding would look like now that I found my dress.
My great grandma Mary Lou is my favorite person. She is the strongest, most
beautiful, wise, and fun loving woman I ever met. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her, talk about her, or miss her. I don’t get to see her often but when I do I make the most of my time and it seems that I learn something new every time. This time i learned the value of something. The value of family is everything. In the end of everything the people who are there for you are your family, whether be for life advice or simply a wedding dress.