The Edith Dress

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Edith Charlotte Laskowski. She passed away in January of 2012. Thinking back to my grandma, I never associated the words loving, happy, warm, or even maternal with her. When it was grandparent’s day at school, she never came. It was always my grandpa who came and who I absolutely adored. My grandma never told jokes, laughed, or even smiled that I can remember. She was the grandma who would pat you on the back but never give you a hug. The fact that children didn’t bring out the nurturing side of her made it odd that she was the director of a daycare center.

She was the grandma that I always turned to for the nice Easter, birthday, and Christmas presents. When she was asked to babysit my youngest cousin, my grandma Edith would always take me with her and pay me to watch my cousin instead. Every year, she would put $1 worth of quarters in Easter eggs instead of candy. It wasn’t unusual for each grandkid, six in total, to walk away from the Easter egg hunt with a full basket of gifts and $20 in quarters.

As a kid, I never understood or even really knew my grandma. She always seemed to emotionally keep everyone at a distance. But there also seemed to be a certain fragility about her. I was never allowed to ask her about her childhood and after a while, I just forgot about asking. My grandpa passed away before my grandma, and that morning is one I will never forget. He had been on hospice with terminal cancer that started in his lungs. The morning my grandma woke up and discovered he had passed sometime in the night, she called my mom as we were about to leave to go to school and work. On the other end of the line as she talked to my mom, I could hear the fear in her voice. At the time, I didn’t necessarily understand why she was afraid. Sadness I could understand, yes. Fear, no. Only later after she died did I understand why she was afraid.

Instead of going to work or school that day, we immediately went to my grandparent’s house. Before going inside, my mom made it clear I was to wait in the family room so as not to see my grandpa on his hospice bed in the living room. When we walked in, though, I got a glimpse of him. Sitting in the family room, I heard my grandma in a way I’d never heard her before. She was displaying so much emotion by crying and wailing. When I asked my mom about it, she just said everyone reacts to death in different ways and that my grandpa was very special to my grandma.

In January of 2012 when my grandma died, I was in Peru on a volunteer trip. She wasn’t answering the phone when my aunt or my mom would call her, so my mom went to investigate. She had had a stroke and was paralyzed on the couch. My grandma was admitted to the ICU but it was made clear to my mom, aunt, and uncle that this was the end. My family had no way to contact me, and I wouldn’t have made it back in time anyways. As the days stretched on in the ICU, my mom realized my grandma was holding on, almost waiting for something before she could let go. Taking stock that the rest of my family was there and around her, my mom said to my grandma, “Mom, Emily is on the plane coming back from Peru and will be here soon. It’s ok to go to sleep if you want. She loves you very much”. Edith Charlotte Laskowski let go and went to sleep about an hour later.

It wasn’t until the funeral and days and weeks after that I really got to know my grandma. She was the oldest of four children, and her parents were first generation Polish immigrants. Her parents, my great-grandma and great-grandpa, were extremely poor. They were also severe alcoholics. They were emotionally and physically abusive towards the kids. My grandma is the one who took care of the younger siblings. She would walk one of her brothers to the outhouse during the night because he was always afraid, whether of the dark or his parents, I don’t know. I imagine both.

I don’t know how my grandparents met, but from the pictures I’ve seen, she was beautiful on her wedding day. It’s not hard to imagine that the marriage was a means of escape for her. And I also don’t blame her for that. I have no doubt she loved my grandpa, in her own way though. There’s a picture taken at her wedding of one of her younger brothers sobbing while her and my grandpa walk back down the aisle after the ceremony. When I asked my great-uncle about it, he wasn’t crying because he was happy. He was crying because now he wouldn’t have his sister to protect him against his parents.

In those days and weeks after when the loved one who passed away is remembered and stories are shared, my mom told me that my grandma used to sew all their clothes as kids. She would take her kids to pick out fabrics and patterns they wanted, and while they were in school, she would make the clothes. That single fact just absolutely blew my mind. I had no idea my grandma even knew how to sew, and it was such a motherly thing to do. But as I heard more of these stories about her, I began to see her in a different light. I now understood that deep vein of fragility that I had sensed running through her. I now understood why she was afraid to live without my grandpa and how much she actually loved him. I now understood that she used money to show us grandkids how much she loved us because she wasn’t able to use that resource with her own brothers and sisters.

Fast forward to nine years later, just a few weeks ago actually. I was at the local Salvation Army digging through racks of clothes. One of the items I found and bought was a dress clearly from the 90s. It’s a slate blue casual shift dress with three buttons on each hip overall style. On the front of the dress were two pockets. Along the top of each pocket were embroidered flowers in the same color thread as the dress. On me, the dress reaches mid-calf. The reason I bought this dress is because as soon as I pulled it from the rack, I thought to myself, “This looks exactly something like Edith would wear”. My grandma was a huge fan of those types of dresses, denim dresses, and sweaters with various holiday appliques on them. When I sent pictures of the dress to my mom and cousin, they both said the same. That was an Edith dress if there ever was one. It cost me a whopping $3.

As I soon as I got home with the dress and my other purchases, I set about removing the pockets from the dress. One quirk about my grandma is that she was never without a tissue. After she passed and we were moving her furniture and clothes out, we would find unused tissues everywhere. Stuffed between couch cushions, hidden behind pillows, crumpled in clothing pockets. As I was ripping the seams on the right pocket of the dress, some stuff fell out. Out came a business card. It was my grandma’s business card from when she was director of the daycare center. Also, an unused tissue came out with the business card. I bought one of my grandma’s dresses!

What are the chances that nine years later, one of my grandma’s dresses would still be there and still with things in the pocket? But after all the years of going there, that was the best $3 I’ve ever spent. Now that I’m older and understand my grandma more, I wouldn’t trade that dress for anything in the world. As the world starts to reopen, we have some family gatherings planned. I plan on wearing that dress to each gathering so that I can make sure my grandma is there too.