Faded Dress

There is a picture of her in a faded cotton dress. It used to be red, now it is a pale washed out rose. The dress is a little large for her, in a pull-over style with stitched down sleeve cuffs and a high waist. The hem is wide, so even as she grows it will fit like it did her sister before she out grew it. The sister was relieved that she could pass down the dress and not have to endure wearing it for another year. It had patch pockets and two large buttons that didn’t really button anything. Her sister had twisted one off, but much to the girls relief mother had sewn it back on, when she shortened the hem. At this age she didn’t understand symmetry but she had a natural feel for the rightness of things in balance. The dress was loose and floated just above her knees. When she twisted around in a circle it flared out wide and wrapped around her legs when she stopped. She had four year old feet and four year old hands. She moved like a dancer with a surprising grace. In the photographers hands, the camera caught her as her head tipped to the left, chin up, eyes closed. Her arms lifted up, her hands were caught in motion like flowers blooming. The ecstasy of her moment was impressed on an image, forever. Mother kept the photograph in a box and looked at it often with a curious smile. When the girl held the picture, even years later, she saw something she hadn’t realized others couldn’t see; how happy that old dress had made her and how timeless joy could be.

Judith A. Sears
©08/22/2018

This little girl is my brother Tim’s grand daughter Sadie. I was inspired to write Faded Dress after seeing and thinking about this picture of her sweet and joyous abandon. I don’t get to see her often enough and I treasure all the photographs my family shares with me. Although Faded Dress is not about Sadie it is about a little girl expressing her joy, something Sadie has a bunch of… jas