Some people plan ahead. Accountants, investment bankers come to mind. Generally it is not the tactic seventeen year old girls are known for. 

 

This week a flurry of such would be dancers have scurried to my path in order for me to adjust their dresses. The prom is ages away after all, being this Saturday, so what was the rush? 

 

Their garments are drop dead gorgeous, one with a sheer overlay and another with thousands of sequins. Maybe tens of thousands. The truth is these young women are lovely in torn sweatpants with a stray strand of hair in their eyes. But they enjoy a chance to get on the shine. Plus they don't believe you when you tell them anyway. Parents are expected to keep their teary stares to a minimum, as their daughters sashay out the door on the arm of a gentleman who is so nervous he is already perspiring. 

 

The first dress was easy. There was so much light sparkling from the sequins I couldn't have made my stitches show if I wanted to. Which I did not. Plus it was a pencil skirt, so there was not much hem to travel. The one in deep sapphire however has two skirts, that went on forever. No kidding, it was three hundred inches between them. But without shortening it she would have tripped on her heels, which is not the way to enjoy your evening at a mansion. 

 

I thought about each young woman as I worked, and gradually realized something. Each of them have lost someone. An uncle. A mother. A brother. To unkind circumstances. As if any are gentle. When those losses first came smashing through the door, friends tried to stop the pain with casseroles, and cards. I delivered some of my own. Those efforts felt pathetically small. 

 

But here it is four or ten years later, and while the emergency status has subsided, the grief has not expired. As I sat with yards of glittering fabric in my lap, I remembered those precious people who left abruptly. And while it did not resemble macaroni in any way, I sensed that it mattered. I imagined their mothers and brothers glancing down from where parties are an every day occurrence at my humble efforts to bring joy to these girls. Young women for whom heart ache is already too familiar. For one night they will dance. And be beautiful.