THE GREEN ORGANDY DRESS
I was three years old. My Mama and Daddy, Alice, Joe, and I lived in a
basement apartment next door to our Memere and Pepere, our mother's parents. I
didn't like to play outside alone, and my mother used to make me. My Dad made a
play yard for us from metal fencing. It had an expandable lattice work wooden
gate that had a metal clip to keep it closed so we didn't go into the road. My
fingers were too weak to open it. I know because I tried a lot, and I cried a
lot trying to get out. I didn't want to go into the road, I wanted back inside
the house, or to go to my Memere's house, although during the week she was
usually working. Both Memere and Pepere worked in a mill that made cloth. I
wanted adult company, and I demanded it, in various annoying and socially
unacceptable ways.
Sometimes my sister Alice would play outside with me, but at that time she
liked more to copy what I was doing instead of really interacting with me, and
her language wasn't very clear yet, so after a while she was kind of boring. So
I spent most of my outside time whining, crying, and making bubbles with spit as
I cried. Probably I whacked Alice once in a while, just to get my mama involved.
My brother Joe was too little to play with and I wasn't allowed to carry him
around. I could have picked up my sister Alice, but she didn't like it and she
would scrunch down with all of her weight so I couldn't lift her. I got tired of
being the big sister, because at that time everyone was smaller and cuter, and
if there wasn't enough of something to go around, I had to go without because I
was the oldest, and because I understood. My language was very well developed,
and I could carry on a decent conversation with almost anyone who wanted to
talk. Of course my topics of conversation were probably boring for the adults in
my life at the time, and I'm sure they needed a break from me, just as I needed
a break from my siblings. It was tough being three.
Anyway, I remember the day I first heard the word “organdy” and saw the
beautiful fabric that it is. It was some type of vacation day. I'm not sure if
it was Summer or Fall. I think it was Summer because we didn't need sweaters to
play outside, but it was possibly late Summer because my aunt Rose's honeysuckle
bush had red berries all over it. Our cousins, Pauline, Irene, Rosette, and
little Louise, came over to play with us. They were the children of our Memere's
baby brother, our uncle, Louis Caron, and his wife, our aunt, Dolores. They are
our second cousins. I think they called Rose, “Rosette” so as not to confuse her
with our Aunt Rose who was Memere's sister. Louise was called little Louise. I'm
not sure if there was another relative named Louise, or if it was just because
she was little. I was called “little Marie” and I called myself that most of the
time, as if I was talking about someone else. I thought of myself in the third
person. I didn't think of myself as “I” until I was about five years old.
Anyway back to the story, I think Pauline went back over to Aunt Rose's house
after a little while, but Irene, Rosette, and little Louise stayed. We had to
stay in the yard but the gate could be opened because Irene and Rose were older
and they could watch us. Little Louise was younger than Alice, but older than
Joe. She was about 2, I think. I was used to Rosette and Irene, but I hadn't had
a chance to play with Louise ever, probably because she was too little. She had
honey blond hair, and blue eyes. Her hair was in three pony tails, one on each
side and one on the top and off to the side. Each ponytail was curled in a
single long curl and was tied with a white satin ribbon. She wore a beautiful
light green organdy dress, the translucent color of a grasshopper wing. That was
the first time I had heard the word “organdy.” I liked the sound of it and the
crinkly feel of little Louise's dress. She also wore a white pinafore apron with
ruffled sleeves. Anyway I thought she was very cute and sweet. She was little
enough that I could easily lift her, and during the time we played I carried her
around a lot, and when I did, I was told to put her down because she and I might
get hurt, and I was told not to be too rough. I was careful.
We played circle games, “Ring Around The Rosie,” “Motorboat,” “Little Sally
Saucer,” “Here Comes The Bluebird,” and the “Farmer In The Dell”. It was a
wonderful happy day. Later we all went to Aunt Rose's house in the evening for a
cookout, I think. We played and played. Some of the boys spit the honeysuckle
berries at each other. We were told not to eat them because they were poisonous.
We chased each other around the honeysuckle bush and we had lots of fun. Little
Louise was right there in the middle of the fun. She laughed and played and had
a wonderful day. Her mother and father were constantly warning us not to be too
rough and to be gentle with her. Her dress and pinafore got dirty with all of
the playing. It was getting dark by the time we all left Aunt Rose's house and
went home.
The next day when we woke up our parents were crying. I had never seen my Dad
cry and I was very worried. Our parents told us that the night before, little
Louise had a high fever, and a convulsion, and she died. They said Uncle Louis
tried to cool her off from the fever by running cold water on her but it didn't
work and she died anyway.
My sister Alice and I went to the wake and the funeral. At the wake little
Louise looked like she was asleep. She was wearing the green organdy dress and
the white pinafore, all clean and lovely again. She had the three ponytails and
the white satin ribbons in her hair. She was beautiful. I touched her knee and
she was cold. Someone told me “This isn't little Louise, it's just her body. She
is up in Heaven with Jesus.” I tried but I didn't really understand. I didn't
know to cry and feel sad. I thought she would wake up after a while, but Mama
said that wouldn't happen.
My sister, Alice, picked a gladiola from a flower basket at the wake. She
curled up on the kneeler near the casket, brushed the flower on her cheek, and
sucked her thumb. Everyone thought she was very cute, and it helped people laugh
a little through their tears. At the funeral the next day, there was a “Mass of
the Angels” Alice and Joe and I sat with Memere and Pepere and Mama and Daddy. I
asked Memere why there was an ironing board in church but she just gave me a
look and didn't answer. I think now it must have been the coffin. It was small
and white. I don't remember the grave side service at all. Maybe we didn't go,
or maybe I just didn't understand it at all and so I've forgotten it.
I did worry that maybe I had picked little Louise up too much and that's why
she got sick, but Mama said that wasn't the reason. I also thought that maybe
she ate some of the honeysuckle berries. I looked them up on the internet
recently and there is no record of any human death from eating them. I think her
family thought it might have been polio that caused the high fever, and that
could be, because polio was a terrible sickness among the children of the
1950's, and it was often fatal.
Alice and I played funeral a lot after that, every time we pretended with our
dolls, until Mama made us stop it.
Little Louise didn't ever come back, of course, but the day we spent with her
lingers in my memory as if it happened yesterday, and I am 62 years old. I'm
glad God gave us that day.
When I was five years old, my memere made me a white organdy dress to wear in
a procession in the Catholic church on Holy Thursday. On that day and any other
day I wore that dress, I thought of little Louise. I think of her every time I
see honeysuckle flowers or berries and any time I play circle games. Lately I
think of her daily. Heaven seems more real to me because of little Louise, and
the rest of our family who are there waiting, and I believe, praying for us.
My mother was pregnant soon after little Louise died, when my sister was
born, my parents named her Louise, and asked uncle Louis and aunt Dolores to be
her God-parents. My sister Louise was blonde and pretty as a child, like little
Louise, and she was a great help to uncle Louis and Aunt Dolores when they got
older and needed help. She got to know them very well, and she got to know our
cousins and was able to be a blessing and a comfort.
My sister Louise told me there are no pictures of little Louise but I think I
remember what she looked like, and I will always carry the memory. Over the
years the experience of losing our little cousin helped me know life is fragile.
Everything can change in an instant. We need to enjoy and love each other while
we can.
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