The Dress I Buried My Mother In

There hangs this little black dress in my closet. The dress I wore the day I buried my mother. Probably a dress I will never wear again, because who re-wears the dress they buried their mother in? The black dress will probably hang there year after year, because who gives away the black dress they buried their mother in? While thumbing through my attempt at a wardrobe, I always catch my breath when I feel the material. I don't even have to look. I know the dress by heart. I could not bring myself to go buy a new black dress to wear to bury my mother. I loathe shopping to begin with, so that task seemed torturesque. I randomly grabbed a dress that day, my brain fogged with incomplete thoughts and swimming in confusion. "Just put something on," I whispered over and over to myself, in an attempt to walk myself through the horror, "Just find something black and slip it on over your head."

As a little girl, I would spend hours sitting on my mom's bed watching her get ready. A slip and panty hose were non-negotiables for every event. It seemed like every where she went she always put those on first. Except for the rare occasion she wore ironed slacks. The woman had drawers full of panty hose; nude, black, brown, navy, shiny, thick, full length, knee length, and on and on. And often times, she'd slip on a little black dress.

No book can prepare you for choosing the outfit you wear to bury someone you cannot imagine life without. Most people cannot help you work through whether or not to ditch the dress you wore, or leave it as a hanging shrine in your closet for all time. Most people dare not even approach the subject.

But this is raw grief. Daily life. Walls you run into and sometimes collapse under. Memories that appear from thin air and threaten to suffocate you. Eventually, you find comfort in the suffocating memories. They become life lines to the person who is gone. You can close your eyes and run to them in the barricaded safety of your memory. The suffocation provides a place to find them. The emptiness connects you to them.

Sometimes I walk into the darkness of the closet. Gently pull it off the hanger and down into my lap, and let the tears spill over onto the little black dress I buried my mother in.

There hangs this little black dress in my closet.

~Sara