ConGradulations

The grad season is over now. We had two nephews graduate - one from Grade Nine the other from Grade Twelve. I attended the Grade Nine grad and got to hear one of the young graduates introduce a fellow classmate by telling us about a poem she had 'wroten'. I'm thinking a few more English classes might be in order. I'm thinking his teachers might either be shaking their heads or squirming. I'm thinking this is funny.

The play by play of Grade Twelve Grad will have to wait until my husband returns from a horse packing slash hiking trip he took to the mountains. I'll find out then because my husband picked up a number of celebrating graduates, including two nephews, at about 4:00 a.m.,the morning after Grad. He and his brother (father of said nephews) packed the boys and assorted friends who were also celebrating, into trucks and headed to the mountains where they would unload the horses, unload the boys, saddle up and head down the trail. No mercy shown to celebrants, I am sure.

But this grad season made me think of my favourite grad story. It has drama, tears, conflict, dilemma's, disasters - and that was just picking out the dress pattern. You see, I made both my daughter's grad dresses. (In Canada, at least western Canada - we call it Grad - Americans would call it Prom). The first one went without a hitch. The second one. . . . cue the drums.

We bought the pattern, measured, decided which size, bought the three layers of material - lining, shiny layer, sparkly layer - I boldy started cutting, then sewed up the lining, then tried said lining on my daughter and - - - the dress was too small. All the material had been cut and sewn. The nearest material shop was 140 klicks away. I sighed, then told my daughter we had two options. Buy a dress, or she could try to lose weight. Being Dutch, she chose the cheaper option. Back to the sewing machine while daughter walked and dieted and was quite proud of her new physique. Then I had to tell her to stop because the dress was now getting too big.

Finally the dress was done, it looked perfectly shiny and spangly and lovely. The day had arrived as days like this usually do. With minor panic. My husband and I were in a hurry, daughter was in a hurry to get to the hairdresser, son was wandering around asking dumb questions like 'where is my shirt?'. Daughter wantd the dress ironed before she left. So I turned on the iron, ran back to the bathroom to deal with my dripping hair, ran back to the ironing board, picked up the iron - can you guess where this is going? - put the iron down on the dress and screamed as the iron melted the dress. Hole 4 x 5 , left flank.

I said some bad words, my daughter's face looked like someone had knocked the wind out of her. Then I cried and my dear daughter who should have been the one crying, put her arm around my shoulder and told me it was all right. I was so proud of her in that moment.

The only saving grace was that I had melted the shiny layer of the three layers. I patched it with trembling fingers as I tried not to let the clock's relentless ticking make me make yet another drastic mistake. The spangly layer went over top and, huge relief. You could only see the patch if you looked very close.

Of course, my daughter, having a sense of humour as well as a sense of grace, had to show her classmates the patch and tell the story. It made a good grad story and she told it with zeal.

And I'm telling it now.