THE DRESS

A little girl stood on the sidewalk crying and holding the

hem of her dress. "Do you like my dress?" she asked

of a passing stranger. "My mommy made it just for me,"

she said with a tear in her eye.

"Well, I think it's very pretty, so tell me little one,

why are you crying?"

With a quiver in her voice, the little girl answered,

"After Mommy made me this dress, she had to go away."

"Well, now," said the lady,

"with a little girl like you waiting

for her, I'm sure she'll be right back."

"No ma'am, you don't understand," said the child through

her tears, "my Daddy said that she's up in heaven now

with Grandfather."

Finally the woman realized what the child meant and why she

was crying. Kneeling down she gently cradled the child in her

arms and together they cried for the mommy that was gone.

Then suddenly the little girl did something that the woman

thought was a bit strange. She stopped crying, stepped

back from the woman and began to sing. She sang so

softly that it was almost a whisper. It was the sweetest

sound the woman had ever heard, almost like the song

of a very small bird.

After the child stopped singing she explained to the lady,

"My mommy used to sing that song to me before she went

away, and she made me promise to sing it whenever I

started crying. She said it would make me stop."

"See," she exclaimed, "it did, and now my eyes are dry!"

As the woman turned to go, the little girl grabbed her sleeve,

"Lady, can you stay just a minute? I want to show you something."

"Of course," the woman answered, "what do you want me to see?"

Pointing to a spot on her dress, she said,

"Right here is where my Mommy kissed my dress, and here,"

pointing to another spot,

"and here is another kiss, and here, and here.

"Mommy said that she put all those kisses on my dress so that

I would have her kisses for every boo-boo that made me cry."

Then the lady realized that she wasn't just looking at a dress –

no, she was looking at a Mother who knew that she was going

away and would not be there to kiss away the hurts that she

knew her daughter would get. So she took all the love she

had for her beautiful little girl and put them into this dress

that her child now so proudly wore.

The woman no longer saw a little girl in a simple dress,

she saw a child wrapped in her mother's love.