Little Blue Dress
There she is in the photograph, sweet baby Amelia, my only granddaughter, sitting on my knee, sticking out her tongue, her wispy blond hair standing up in spikes, her eyes appearing slightly crossed, wearing the blue dress I bought her before she was born, nine years ago.
The dress was impractical for a three-month-old, and sinfully expensive. It didn’t work with a diaper, and she couldn’t possibly crawl around in it. It was an impulse buy on that day on Bloor Street in Toronto, shopping with my daughter Bryony, when my son Simon called to say that an ultrasound had just shown that the baby he and his wife, Line, were expecting was a girl.
Our family favoured boys when it came to producing offspring so this was exciting news. We were thrilled to have another female join the tribe. We could see ourselves in the coming years helping to shape her into a modern young woman, standing her ground and making her mark. I cautioned Aunt Bryony not to get too carried way. This child would make her own decisions, in her own way, with our love, not our interference.
Buoyed by the good news, we headed straight to the nearest kids’ store and bought Amelia her first dress. We were both chomping at the bit to do this, having grown tired of the boy stuff we’d been buying for the grandsons.
Later, on the day the photo was taken, Line had thoughtfully put the little one in the blue dress because I was visiting their home. I don’t believe I have ever seen Amelia wear a dress since. Like many nine-year-old girls, she prefers skinny jeans and leggings, tee-shirts and hoodies, and lately, a black bomber jacket over a black shirt, accentuated by pink shades and silver sneakers. The height of tween fashion.
Amelia was an in vitro baby. She was born on a brilliantly sunny August day. I thought of her as the miracle child. That became an even more appropriate description when she had a seizure the day after her birth, causing some cell death in her brain. Why it happened was never fully understood.
After a terrifying 48-hour vigil at the children’s hospital, when we sat silently praying with her other grandparents, we were told she was a fighter and would recover enough to go home. We were allowed in one at a time to see her. I will never forget how tiny she looked in the big hospital bed, her head shaved on one side and tubes attached to various parts of her small body. The miracle was that she suffered no long-term damage. Her strong young brain had regenerated new cells.
Over the next seven years, under the care of a kind neurologist, Amelia continued to hit all her physical and mental developmental marks. Today she is a happy, athletic, plain-spoken young girl. She smiles when she comes across the photo in my office, kind enough not to tease me about the blue dress. This miracle child is a joy to watch as she cartwheels across the lawn, dives into the Gatineau River off the dock, or flies down the hills at the local ski club … never in a dress, of course.
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Thabk you! You reminded me that there's a blue dress from my own babyhood, and another one from my daughter's, that we did wear, however impractical with the diaper, and that I had both mounted together in a shadow box along with accompanying pictures. But I never hung that shadow box because the blue dresses don't quite fit our decor. Now I'm thinking I might want to rethink that...
Ah yes! I did the same but with my daughter who appeared after two boys! The dress was pink and worn only until she could say NO !!!!!!