Impulse Dress

 It was an impulse dress for an impulse wedding. My youngest daughter's beautiful wedding dress hangs forlornly in the corner of my cigar bedroom.  She wore it only once, as it should be.. but why the hurry?

She was twenty seven years old and her life felt like chaos. Maybe getting married, maybe having somebody to stand with you while you hear the most devastating news one can hear in a lifetime, maybe that makes buying your wedding dress not such an impulse after all, right?

 Surrounded by mementos of cigars, her stately dress presides in a room meant to be homage to her late Uncle Tommy who died two years earlier from liver failure.  The cigar boxes are stacked neatly on a shelf. Uncle Tommy loved the  order of things; stacks, folded clothes, neat drawers and an aromatic box opening to an occasional cigar.
Why have this pure white gown hanging in here?

 After Tommy died, the room seemed to magically evolve - a cigar picture here and there gleamed from thrift stores and garage sales.

 A couch from Homemakers that was sitting discarded in the warehouse as the store window displayed the "Going out of Business" sign. Great buy! A rug depicting cigars - how cool is that??

The back of her dress has buttons and lace ties.  Good idea for a girl who, like her mother, gains and looses those ten pounds in moments of stress.
This was an impulse dress - bought when the stress of hearing she too had a heart condition that perhaps took her nephew. Did they have the same condition?  We're not sure.  We believed they both had asthma. Doctors were treating them both for that.  When Bobby went to his next life, it wasn't asthma that took him.  He had a heart condition.
We were torn apart, absolutely devastated  that cold March day. Afterwards, weeks later, the nagging thought filtered through - what if Sara had a heart condition too?  What if her doctor was wrong all these years?
She was diagnosed with asthma when she was about four.  Her older brother, Bobby's father Dino, had asthma and noticed Sara wheezing. Curiously we let her take a puff from his inhaler and her wheezing stopped.  Her doctor never tested her for this condition. It was just assumed.
Through the years she managed to control her health issues except when she decided to sneak out of the house and ended up breaking her leg when she was fifteen.  After having her leg set, she was given an ECG The cardiologists were very excited about the results. They wanted her to set up an appointment but they never told us what the reason was.  When we asked our primary care physician, she pretty much "poo pooed" the idea away.
Now we understand that was a mistake. Knowing that she suffers a genetic heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, would we have questioned Bobby's care a little more intensely?
As it stands, we give Bobby credit for saving Sara's life.  She went to a specialist who has given her back her life. She has had heart damage. She has a defibrillator. She has medication. She was pressed for time.
Her boyfriend of a few years stood by her side and Sara decided her life was passing by way too fast.  Four months after Bobby died, Sara got married in a civil ceremony with immediate family. She wasn't going to buy a dress until we could plan a reception - maybe in a year.  While strolling past the formal gown shops, we decided to just take a peak at a few gowns.  This one was made for her.  With a few minor adjustments, it was perfect.  With the buttons and lace ties at the back, she could easily wear it again in a year.  So she purchased it.
Wearing it into the courthouse proudly, we followed her into the elevator and down the hall.  Afterwards we went to breakfast and then to the most beautiful place in the world, the Botanic Gardens, for pictures.
We came back to our home and quickly hung up her dress in the cigar room.  There it stands, forlornly waiting for a day that will never arrive. A queen without her court.
Instead, she will head into another courtroom tomorrow to hear the judge issue the final decree - divorce.