A Little Blue Dress
A Many Voices Guest Post by Paula Halpin
There she is in the photograph, sweet baby Olivia, my only granddaughter, sitting on my knee, sticking out her tongue, her wispy blond hair standing up in spikes, her eyes appearing slightly crossed, wearing the blue dress I bought her before she was born 11 years ago.
The dress was impractical for a three-month old. It did not work with a diaper, and she needed to wear it with tights which spoiled the line. It was a spur of the moment purchase, prompted by emotion, not common sense.
I was shopping with my daughter Anna on Bloor Street in Toronto when my son Kevin texted from Ottawa to say an ultrasound had revealed that the baby his wife Linda was expecting was a girl.
Anna and I hooted and hugged each other with excitement at the news. Finally, another female to add to the tribe. When it came to producing offspring, our family favored the XY chromosome, so the ladies were outnumbered.
As we walked by the high-end clothing stores on this fashionable boulevard, Anna and I talked about how in the coming years we would help to shape our new girl into a modern young woman, standing her ground and making her mark. I cautioned Aunt Anna not to get too carried way. This child would make her own decisions, in her own way.
As we were passing Holt Renfrew, I suggested we look for a pretty dress for the little one. So much for our feminist indoctrination scheme. But we were both champing at the bit to check out the girl fashions having grown tired of the boy stuff we’d been buying for my grandsons.
Holt Renfrew is the kind of store that makes me feel I should have had my hair and make up done and be wearing a borrowed pearl necklace before crossing the threshold and facing the frank appraisal of the sales staff who always seem better dressed than their well-heeled customers – or should I say, clientele.
After a quick spray of French perfume from the tester at the cosmetics counter (a ritual for me in expensive department stores), Anna and I rode the escalator to the children’s department and immediately spotted the little blue dress, made of a linen-like material and sporting puffy sleeves. Perfect. Outrageously expensive, but perfect.
Olivia was an in-vitro baby, our miracle child. She was born on a scorching day in August. Miracle baby became an even more appropriate description when she had a seizure the day after her birth -- not fatal but causing some cell death in her brain. We never fully understood why it happened.
After a terrifying 48-hour vigil at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, where we paced anxiously in a waiting room with Olivia’s other grandparents, a nurse told us that our newborn was a fighter and would recover enough to go home. We were allowed in one at a time to see her. I will never forget how tiny she looked in the big hospital bed, her head shaved on one side and tubes attached to various parts of her small body. I was somewhat skeptical when the nurse said she was a fighter. How did she know that? Yet there was something indefinable in her little face, framed by a pink bonnet for warmth, that suggested a determination to live. Mercifully, she suffered no long-term damage. Her strong young brain had quickly begun to regenerate neurons.
Over the next seven years, under the care of a pediatric neurologist, Olivia continued to hit all her physical and mental developmental marks. Today she is a happy, physically-daring pre-teen, who cartwheels across the lawn, dives into the Gatineau River off the dock, and careens down hills on her snowboard at the local ski club.
In many ways, Olivia is now my teacher. One day, she tells me that her pronoun is “she” and that her best friend prefers “they.” She explains to me what non-binary means. Another day, she wants me to go with her to Texas to visit the largest truck stop in the world. Apparently, it has 12 restrooms and smoked meat sandwiches that rival those of Montreal. She shows me how video games work. I pretend to understand. For a career, she is trying to decide whether she should be a YouTube influencer (who knew there was such a thing) or, for some reason, a cop.
Olivia smiles when she comes across the photo in my office, the one with her on my knee wearing the blue dress. Come to think of it, I have seldom seen her wear another dress. She prefers skinny jeans and leggings, tee-shirts and hoodies, and lately, a black bomber jacket worn over a short black skirt, accentuated by hot pink sunglasses and silver sneakers. My fashionista granddaughter, pride of the girl side of our tribe.
Paula Halpin is a retired magazine editor living in the beautiful Gatineau Hills of Western Quebec. Grateful for finally having the time, perspective and opportunity to write and share stories.
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I love the narrator's voice, and could so relate to the shopping trip for the impractical but gorgeous blue dress. And that granny-to-be could not have foreseen that Olivia would become the teacher. A wise and beautiful story! Thank you.
The passage of time is fabulous - from that blue dress to that black skirt, she has become your teacher. Absolutely gorgeous I recently learned the Yiddish word "kvell' from my friend Judy - and in this piece, this is what the narrator does. Loved it.