Forty years ago, I met my
husband at Oviedo High School. Yes. We were high school sweethearts. Odds for
our continued success were not good. We were young. We were goofy. We were
hardly qualified to drive an automobile let alone make a life together.
We did . . .
. . . make a life together.
We’re stubborn that way.
This Christmas, my high school
sweetheart decided he would gift me several new dresses. He’s done that in the
past, bought me clothes that I loved, and that I wore until they rotted off my
body. There was one little number, a little navy-blue sailor dress that I
rocked for years . . . This Christmas was a blast from the past—in more ways
than one.
I opened my gifts and pulled
out three lovely fitted dresses.
Size? High school prom.
“Sweetheart,” I began, “they’re
quite nice.” I held up one emerald green shift to my grandmotherly body. It
covered one shoulder and a chunk of love handle. “But . . . I can’t wear it.”
“What? Why?”
“Because there’s not enough of
it.”
He pulled the dress out of my
hands and frowned at the fabric he held. “But these are the kind of dresses you
always like to wear.”
I rejected telling him that I
haven’t worn a dress like this in twenty years. I counted the darts,
contemplated the narrow, nipped-in waistline, and noted the lack of stretch in
the overall design. I checked the tag in the neck: size, teenager.
“Babe, Zoe might be able to
wear them.” Zoe is our fifteen-year-old granddaughter.
He looked genuinely puzzled.
“Really?”
“Really. Really.”
Sighing, I ran my hand over my
unwearable Christmas gifts.
Zoe wore one of them to church
just the other Sunday. She looked like a rockstar stock broker. The emerald
green dress fit like a well sewn glove.
My grown children told her how
great she looked, how grown-up, how slick and professional.
My son looked at me and said, “Hey,
isn’t that one of the dresses Dad bought for you for . . .”
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Zoe,” he continued, “What size
do you wear?”
“Zero,” she said.
My son turned back to me and
said, “Wow!”
He called it. Wow. I’m married
to a man that either is so deliriously still in love with me that he only sees
the girl with the twenty-three-inch waist and the cute “Sweet Honesty” t-shirt,
or he hasn’t actually looked at me in twenty years.
I’m going with delirious.
Linda (Sweetly Honest) Zern
