Just like that it happened. Justin and I were cleaning out our garage over Christmas break (we could barely walk through with all the clutter that accumulated during the Christmas season madness), and came across our hanging tree filled with all of Grace’s dress up princess dresses. None of them have fit her for a few years now, and several are likely 2 or 3T size if I actually sat down to look at the tags, but they’ve been hanging there for some time, set aside in our side room of the garage, collecting dust.
I guess when I moved them out of the playroom, into that room in the garage, I knew their time was done. But something in me wasn’t ready to pack them up yet. Maybe she would still look for them on occasion, and hunt them down in the garage? Maybe when some of her still-dress-up-loving-friends were to come over, they’d want to use them to play? But, really, they didn’t fit anyway.
I knew it was time. Not to give them away, but to box them up. Some of these dresses were hand-me-downs from my cousin’s children, who so lovingly shared them with Grace. Some were gifts, and others were coveted desires of her
s. No matter how they arrived in our home, these now-ragged pieces of her childhood have become so precious to me that the thought of giving them away made me almost cry on the spot. Instead, I packed them in a large bin for our storage shed, hopefully saving them for her children one day. After all, my kids still use several dress-up items that my own Mom saved for me from my childhood. There’s hope.
As I thought about it, what was really at the core of my sentimentality about the dresses? Wearing these dresses marked such a stage of innocence for Grace, one which she is seemingly moving past so quickly with each passing day. For so many years, she wore these dresses day in and day out, convinced that she really was “Belle” or “Sleeping Beauty” or “Snow White.” She wore them to play dress up at our home, but she also wore them to the grocery store, to the park, and on walks in the neighborhood.
Oh, how she loved these dresses.
So, for me, boxing up these battle-worn bits of her childhood was such a page-turner, and one that I wasn’t quite ready for. Not sure I ever will be, but that’s okay.
Maybe it’s the princess dresses for you. Or maybe it’s Thomas the Train set. Maybe it’s a special pair of cowboy boots that seemed to fit your son or daughter for their entire childhood. Whatever it is, cherish those sweet memories of innocence, and celebrate their step (and yours!) into the next phase, full of its own treasures.
