Marialice's Dress
Posted Wed, 2010-02-17 17:55 by Emily Caryl
Last weekend, I helped my girlfriend, Lorilee, clean out an apartment belonging to Marialice, a 90 year old woman. Marialice recently entered a nursing home and will probably never return to her apartment. Since her family lives in France, Lorilee and I volunteered to help out. We threw away a lot of trash. We set aside furniture, clothes, and kitchen paraphernalia for Goodwill. And we boxed up keepsakes and photos to be kept by the family.
Cleaning out the apartment of someone you've never met before is a humbling experience. Especially when that person has lived for nearly a century and is nearing the end of this life. I learned a lot about Marialice that day. She traveled all over the world. She loved her family. And at some point in her life, she must have been a dressmaker or a designer. We found a portfolio of patterns that she obviously designed, books on dressmaking and pattern alterations, and sketches of classic, 1950s era dresses.
After filling countless numbers of boxes for charity and hauling half a dozen bags of trash to the dumpster, Lorilee and I delivered four or five boxes to Marialice at the nursing home. She smiled and chatted with us. She recognized the pictures we brought and I think, was grateful to have the few items that meant the most to her.
As we were leaving, Lorilee observed, "This is it. This is what's important at the end." We all collect ridiculous amounts of "stuff" in our lifetimes. Closets full of clothes, houses filled with furniture, shelves of books, you name it. But in the end, none of it matters. The things that Marialice wanted near her were photos of her family and her husband. Mementos of this grand life she lived in her short time on Earth.
Although the family told Lorilee and I we could keep anything we wanted, we didn't take much. We both realized, I think, that some day, someone will be clearing out our apartments and one more kitchen utensil, another book, an additional knick knack on the wall just won't matter.
But, when I was going through Marialice's closet, I found a spectacular embroidered cotton dress (costume?). It's obviously handmade and hand embroidered. There are no tags in it anywhere. It doesn't even look like it has ever been worn.
I'm guessing it's a traditional costume of some type from Thailand? Somewhere else in Asia? If anyone in Internet Land can offer information about what country this might be from, or its history, I'd love to know.
I'll probably never wear the dress in its current incarnation (for one, it's at least six inches too long for me). But the embroidery was too intricate to send it to Goodwill! Some day, I might cut off the embroidered sections and sew them onto something new and different. I'm not quite sure how that might be done. Ideas from the peanut gallery are welcome!
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