Steaming

Steaming. No, I’m not talking about the weather outside, although I certainly could be.  I’m talking about The Wedding Dress.  Designed by my mother, made by her mother, and worn by six brides, including me.  Now my daughter is wearing it in a week.  After having been carefully cleaned and preserved following the last wedding, the dress simply needed to be steamed in preparation for this wedding.

It took me one phone call to discover that it costs $300 to steam a wedding dress.  I decided that I could purchase a professional-style steamer and do it myself.  I spent much of the 4^th of July steaming the dress. I discovered that the skirt had four layers: a satin layer with a train, two layers with yards and yards of tulle with a train, and a top layer of tulle and lace, with a lace train. It is all very lovely, but it is a lot of material to steam.  As I wrestled with the steamer and the tulle and some small burns, the $300 started to seem like more of a bargain.

Except.  As I steamed the dress, I saw up close the careful stitches that my grandmother made. I began to think about all of the time and effort that she invested in creating the dress according to my mother’s wishes. My grandmother made a dress whose fitted bodice was the perfect size for my mother and, amazingly, six others of us.  Working on the dress, I saw stains on the train that the most careful cleaning had not been able to remove.  I discovered some tiny tears in the tulle and a few age spots on the satin. I love that each imperfection is a reminder that the wedding day is a celebration of a marriage, not a veneration of a dress. As I steamed every inch of the dress, I could feel the history. Vee, Gene, Nancy, Judy, Sally, Louise, and now Caroline have all worn this dress.  There has not been a divorce among us. The fabric of that dress has seen the start of many joined lives, and the memories seemed almost palpable as the steam rose from the dress.

The dress is hanging in my living room for the next week, so that I can continue to steam and fluff. (Obsessive?  Me???)  More than that, though, I enjoy looking at a testament to life and love and hopes and dreams, all pulled together by the careful stitches of my grandmother.

Tears

Tears. I’ve got ‘em.  Always have and always will.  They were the bane of my childhood, when I would cry too easily at playground injuries or slights.  I still remember when my 5^th grade class was forced to watch “Old Yeller.”  My grief at the dog’s death was surpassed only by my mortification at crying yet again in front of my classmates.  

Time has tempered my waterfalls- usually.  I remember an older preacher once commenting that “sometimes you just have to suck it up and help others in really emotional situations without getting that way yourself.”  There was great truth in his words, and I am thankful for the God-given grace to be present in a situation without falling apart myself. That does not mean that there are no longer times when I can feel my tears welling up. For instance, if I know I am telling a tender story during a sermon, I might practice it until I can say it without clouding up. And there are situations when the right thing to do is the most natural thing to do; as the old hymn puts it, “and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.” By and large, though, I cry a lot less easily than I did in grade school.

Except for now.  It began while I was officiating a wedding on Saturday.  When the organ began “The Wedding March” and the doors swung open to reveal the bride, suddenly all I could see was Caroline coming down the aisle to the same song in two weeks.  Luckily, everyone was looking at the bride, not me when I began crying, and I managed to compose myself before she got down the aisle. The wedding was completed without incident.  

The floodgates are now open.  Last night, I watched the 1950’s “Father of the Bride” with the Bride and the Father and cried. Profusely.  (Andy's shirt sleeve was really wet by the end of the movie.) I was telling some of my favorite church people this morning about that incident and started crying in the telling.  I looked at a practice flower arrangement for the reception that I had made and cried.  It is going to be a wet week and a half.  

The thing of it is, these are happy tears. Tears of joy can be more precious than any other tears. It is such a happy time, a time of promise and hope, and I want to enjoy every moment of it.  If you see me burst into tears in the coming days, I hope you’ll share my joy and cry along. Oh, and if you’re in the area, you might bring by an extra box of Kleenex or two.