Sunday, Day Eight: Dress

My sister and I sometimes received new dresses for Easter—not every year, but often enough for some of these dresses to stick in my memory. I remember a blue and white pastel striped dress, a pale orange dress with a laced collar, a robin’s-egg blue dress with a white pleated skirt. They were fancier than the dresses we usually wore to church.  I loved those new dresses, even though I inevitably spilled something on mine at some point. We weren’t allowed to put them on until right before church, just to be safe.

After the long days of Lent, when no dancing, weddings, or parties were allowed (save for a couple exceptions, like the Annunciation), we entered a long season of parties. We would wear those dresses to all special occasions that spring and summer—weddings, baby showers, birthdays—but we continued to call them our “Easter dresses.”

Today, that Easter dress is a metaphor for carrying something precious and beautiful into the spring and through the summer. Nothing stays new forever. Sometimes we have to smother stain remover over a chocolate smudge, or find a pin to cover the spot, small or large. Sometimes (as my mother did one year) we have to mend the place on the sleeve where the Easter candle got too close and caused a little fire. 

We can still treasure the story of New Life, of New Beginning, wear it over and over into each day, even when life gets  messy or all-consuming.