In the Middle of the Dress She Never Wore

There was a time when folding her clothes felt like preparing for something certain.

I remember sitting in her nursery, taking my time as I put each piece away. It wasn’t just about organizing or getting ready; it felt like I was participating in her life before she even arrived. Every outfit carried a small, quiet assumption: she will wear this. Not all at once, not in some grand, emotional way, but in the steady rhythm of ordinary days I hadn’t yet lived.

I found myself thinking ahead without even trying. I would come across something and instinctively place it in a moment that didn’t exist yet. This one felt like Thanksgiving. That one would be perfect for Christmas morning. And somewhere along the way, I pulled out a small purple dress that I had worn as a baby and set it aside, thinking it might be right for Easter. It wasn’t a firm decision or a meaningful declaration but just a quiet thought I held onto as I folded and prepared and imagined. At the time, none of it felt fragile. It felt normal. That’s the part that’s hard to explain now.

After she died, those same clothes became something else entirely. I couldn’t leave them out the way they were, but I also wasn’t ready to let them go. So I packed them away carefully, almost the same way I had folded them before…only this time, I wasn’t preparing for her arrival. I was trying to make sense of her absence. They’re still tucked away, neatly stored in my mom’s attic, waiting for a decision I don’t know how to make.

And today is Easter.

We went to church this morning, and everywhere I looked there were little girls in dresses their mothers had chosen for them. Soft colors, bows, tights that don’t quite stay in place. I watched families gather afterward, pausing to take pictures, adjusting collars and smoothing down fabric, trying to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time.

The whole morning was full of language about life. About resurrection. About what has been overcome. And I believe in the resurrection. I believe that death is not the end, that Christ has overcome it, that there will be a day when all things are made new.

But belief does not erase the space she left here. It doesn’t put weight in my arms.
It doesn’t turn stored-away clothes into something worn and lived in.

There is a kind of dissonance in holding both things at once — the hope I have been given through my faith, and the reality I am still living inside of. Today, especially, that tension feels sharper. Today, my heart hurts a little bit deeper.

Because Easter insists on joy. It invites it, even commands it in some ways. And I understand why. I understand what it means, what it cost, what it promises. But I am not living in the fulfillment of that promise yet. Not fully. Not in the ways I can touch.

So I sit in church and think about resurrection while quietly carrying everything that has not been restored. I watch little girls in their Easter dresses and think about the one I had set aside, folded with no urgency, assuming there would be time. I think about how much of motherhood lives in these small, unseen preparations — the ones that don’t get acknowledged as real until there is a child there to meet them. And I think about how those acts of love still exist in me, even though they have nowhere to land.

I keep thinking about that purple dress. It’s still packed away with the rest of her things, folded just as carefully as it was the first time. Nothing about it has changed. It hasn’t been worn or outgrown or replaced. It hasn’t been pulled from a laundry basket or hung back up after a long day. It has only ever existed as something I chose for her, something I imagined her in.

I don’t know what to do with that now. I don’t know what it means to hold onto something that was meant for a day that came anyway…just without her in it.

Easter is here. The church was full. The songs were sung. The pictures were taken.

And the dress is still folded.