Therapy Thoughts: Unresolved Feelings

day#8 post op

You have a lot of time to think in rehab.  Certainly, you are busy enough with all the therapy and nurse visits, etc.  But a lot of time is spent resting, trying to think about anything other than the aching  knee.  Sewing related topics, of course, are a common diversion.

Back in the closets of my mind a memory hangs, one that sometimes falls off its hook, requiring my attention.   A reader’s recent comment brought this particular recollection to the forefront of my mind.  In response to the post, Spring is Sprung, Karen said,  “I, too, used to buy smocked dresses at Dillard’s and Strasburg when they were on sale. That way my sweetie was dressed in sweet traditional things that I wasn’t concerned about her ruining. Although, I always felt that the beautiful things I made her were meant to be worn by her. There were some that were tossed or given away to Goodwill but not many. Most survived!”

That comment spurred this memory, more than 25 years old, of an anonymous child wearing one of Rebecca’s dresses.  It left me with feelings that I have been unable to accurately identify, express  or understand, even to this day.  Allow me to give you some background so you might see this from my perspective. 

Most of my daughter’s wardrobe was heirloom sewn or smocked.  I was stitching  nearly full time, as were her grandmother and one adoring  aunt who had no children.  Rebecca had smocked school dresses, smocked church dresses with matching smocked bonnets, smocked play clothes, smocked hair barrettes, smocked nightgowns and smocked coats.  The child was literally clothed in stitches of love. 

Of course, you cannot save everything, especially when there is just soooo much.  I gave away so many of her smocked things and always enjoyed knowing that some other child would be wearing these sturdy classics. A  good many of Becca’s  garments were put away and have been loaned to and worn by other children, as well as by my granddaughter Laurel who wears them now. 

While Rebecca was still small, several of her dresses were given a another child at church, including one made of blue and white windowpane fabric, cut from Trudy Horne’s Toddler Smocked Apron www.collarsetc.com .

 Still one of my all-time favorites, this sweet pattern has just a bit of smocking at the center front neckline, room enough for one picture smocked figure.  For a play dress, Rebecca and I both loved it.  This particular dress featured  white cuffs and collar piped in red, with a big red apple smocked at the front.  With matching windowpane bloomers, it was a perfect preschool playground outfit. 

When I gave it to Ashley’s mother, there were no strings attached.  I did not ask to have it returned to me, only that she enjoy it and pass it on. 

About two years later, one of my children suffered another painful ear infection and I found myself once  again at the all night pharmacy, waiting for the  prescription. 

As I strolled the aisles at midnight, hoping for distraction, I spotted a little urchin in the blue windowpane apron.  The dress was a size 3, the child about a size 18 months.  She was dirty, her hair was tangled, her feet were bare and she looked exhausted as she wandered up the aisle, alone with her thumb in her mouth.  

I just halted and stared.  Shortly, a shabby, irritable looking  man came along and snatched up her by the arm without a word.  Then she was gone,  in the blue windowpane Toddler Smocked Apron.

As I stood there, a jumble of disconnected thoughts ran through my head, like a series of commercials on tv, all unrelated all on the same channel. Why did I feel so unsettled? 

Well, the child should have been in bed, I knew that.  But perhaps, like me, her father was awaiting a prescription and had no one with whom to leave the little girl. 

She should have been bathed, I knew that too.  But sometimes things happen and baths don’t.

The dress did not fit her.  But was that enough reason for my unease?

Did I resent this little ragamuffin wearing the dress I stitched with so much love?  No….I hoped some of the love stitched in that frock somehow leeched through to the tiny girl.  I hoped that some of the positive attention that is so often drawn by a smocked dress would be directed to the child.

Was it the contrast between what I knew to be Rebecca’s life in a cocoon of love and safety and what I imagined to be this little girl’s life of insecurity?  Was  it fair to make such assumptions on a moment’s glance in the drug store?  Would my opinion of her situation be different if she had been wearing some generic, non-descript little outfit? 

I don’t know.  And I probably never will know what I feet about thatmidnight encounter with the Toddler Smocked Apron. 

Has anyone else had a similar experience?  How did you react?  Karen,  how you would feel if you ran into one of your Goodwill give-away dresses? I’d really like to know.