The Flag Dress
Five parades, one childhood
UPDATE: I wrote this piece two years ago, when Angelina was in second grade. I pulled it out last Flag Day and now on the night before her very last, after much debate, I decided to post it again with an update.
With so much heavy stuff going on in the world right now, it feels trivial to wax nostalgic about a hand-me-down dress. But with all the upheaval and change of the last few months, I’m going to take a bit of solace in one thing that didn’t change.
That dress.
With all the tears my child has shed these last few weeks, I’m going to take a bit of solace in something that makes her smile.
That dress.
Tomorrow morning, Angelina will stand by our front door wearing her cousin’s hand-me-down dress, the one she has been wearing since she was 4. I will take her picture as I have done every year since kindergarten. Instead of kissing her goodbye as the bus comes, with one last reminder to stop and smile when she sees me at the parade, we will then climb into our decorated car for a short car parade around Cherry Road School. The teachers will be there, lined up and waving, and she will pop her head out the sun roof and wave back. I’ll drive as slowly as possible to stretch it out, and that will be our 12th and final Flag Day celebration.
This morning, I videotaped her singing some patriotic songs on a zoom chrous sing-along, hers a lone, sweet voice in the room, but for the soft sound of her teacher singing from the laptop. A far cry from the normal throngs of hundreds of kids packed onto the lawn singing in unison.
None of this the way we wanted it, but not much is these days for anyone.
But this is it. For those of us in the Westhill district, we revel in this annual event, the very essence of small town innocence. We use it to mark the passage of time, the growth of our children, our love affair with our elementary schools, and then finally, the end of a chapter in their lives and in ours.
So with that, here’s a piece about a beloved dress, which is about so much more than a dress. Never more so than now.
There was a time when Angelina only wore dresses.
But over the past few years, the dresses and ubiquitous princess costumes gave way to her own sense of style that both mirrors and showcases her spunky independence. She wears what she wants, when she wants, where she wants. Her motto: “My body, my rules.” She once wore a tutu over her dress to a Father-Daughter dance and as a matter of principal, refuses to wear matching socks or anything that anyone else picks out for her.
That’s why I was so surprised when she asked about the flag dress last week.
The flag dress has been in her closet since before she was tall enough to wear it, a hand-me-down from her cousin Hannah, who is without question, her favorite person on earth.
Hannah is her heroine. Hannah is part mermaid, part fairy sprite and all guerilla girl. She has an empathy for, an understanding of and indignation at the world’s injustices well beyond her 20 years. She’s girl power; she’s goddess; she’s gorgeous. And Angelina absorbs every bit of her. It is special for all of us whenever she wears something that was Hannah’s.
And so, the flag dress. Though tricky to get on with its crisscrossed back, it became an instant favorite. She wore it as soon as she was tall enough not to trip over it, and as we hustled to watch her brothers in the Cherry Road Flag Day parade every year, the refrain became, “Some day you can wear that to your Flag Day.”
And with each year, as the dress grew a bit shorter, her own time for the Flag Day parade drew ever nearer. And then it was her turn.
She wore it in kindergarten, over black tights and under a flag sweater, also Hannah’s, because it was a chilly morning. By parade time she had shed the sweater, and the dress reached about halfway down her shins.
She wore it in first grade, the hem now creeping ever closer to her knees.
I told her then it was likely her last year wearing the flag dress.
But still, when summer things got packed away for fall, back into the closet in went. Just in case.
About a month ago, she picked out new flag shorts and a T-shirt to wear to this year’s parade. Neither of us gave the old dress in the closet a second thought.
Then, a few days before the parade, she asked for it. She dug it out, and I held the crisscrossed straps as always so she could get it on right, and over her head it went. It seemed as if there was no room for her arms to slide up the sides and pop out the top. But out they came.
It fit.
As she took it off and we laid it out for the morning, she asked what would happen to it when it no longer fit. She has a hard time parting with things — any things — though she enjoys passing on her special clothes and toys to one of our special little friends, Violet. She asked if Violet might get the dress. I assured her we would keep it and she smiled.
And so, she wore it in the Flag Day parade in second grade, on a glorious sunny day, her knees now in complete view beneath the hem. (And then again in third grade.)
So many things intersect among the stars and stripes of that dress, and in her desire to wear it one more year. In this case, a sense of tradition and a deep connection to another human being won out over her ever-evolving style, her thrill over wearing something brand new (and disdain to be seen in the same thing as last year) and her constant quest to forge her own path.
She’ll outgrow many things on her journey. But I hope that dress will fit one more time.
Maybe two.
