Fit to Print Volume 25 Issue 1 March 2016 | Page 12
M e m b e r Pe r s p e c t i v e
by Christine Jelley
Two Blue Dresses
One Mother of the Groom’s Inspiration
Mom and I flipped through an old issue
of People after my wedding. It showed
pictures of Caroline's wedding. Mom
pointed to a picture of Jackie.
“That's what I should have worn,” said
Mom. “Look at her.” I had to admit, it
was perfect. It sounded like she
regretted our choice; Jackie did
better. We didn't know about personal
shoppers or stylists back then. Plain
and simple, Jackie nailed it and we
didn't.
C
aroline Kennedy got married in
July 1987, one year before my own
wedding. She wore a custom
Carolina Herrera short-sleeved gown
dotted with delicately embroidered
shamrocks. Jackie wore a pale green silk
sheath dress, also Carolina Herrera, with
ivory tea-length leather gloves and a
beige clutch. Every seam was flawless;
every inch was Camelot. A photo showed
Jackie leaning on Ted Kennedy's shoulder,
dabbing a tear. She held a linen hanky. I
was married a year later. It was the late
1980s and my mother and I chose a
cobalt blue gown with a sequined bodice
as her Mother of the Bride dress. She
wore a sharp black blazer over it and a
pair of platinum diamond and sapphire
earrings, a gift from Dad.
My father showed me the earrings before
he gave them to her. They were the most
beautiful things I had ever seen. Mom
wondered aloud what Dad had been
thinking; expensive jewelry was not her
style. She wore them along with the
cobalt blue gown to my wedding.
Growing up, my Mom and I were excited
to wear the metal daisy flower brooches
that were shrink-wrapped along with
bottles of Palmolive Dishwashing Liquid
as an incentive to try the new green
upstart. I wore one to play outside and
pinned the other three we had collected
onto each of my friends' summer tops
while we were making mud pies and
grass salads. We were busy, happy
housewives with heavy pins pulling small
holes into the light fabric.
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“Everything hurts,”
I blurted out
My older son is getting married in May.
I vowed to do mom proud and shun the
glitzy, the too young and the too old,
push shiny things away and be a
modern-day Jackie. If Mom were still
here, she would have shopped with
me. My fate was in the hands of my
vision, the Internet and the UPS man.
The first dress arrived, and I
immediately called Eileen Jacinth for
personal training.
<>
uttered these magic words: “I am all
about prevention. I want to dance all
night at my kids and grandkids’
weddings, too.” She reintroduced me to
circuit training and the caramelcushioned equipment. It felt very natural
to return to these old friends, who have
been upgraded twice since my last goaround. She wanted to get me into the
black weight-lifting section, too, but I
refused. Caramel cushions say, “We're in
this together.” Black metal says, “Earn
it.”
We moved into the room adjacent to the
boutique, which must have an actual
name, to stretch. Eileen showed me how
to hook two firm, looped straps across a
beam and thread a bar though the loops.
Good news – I can bend. At our next
meeting, she showed me how to roll out
the muscles on a hard black roller placed
on the floor. When Eileen demonstrates,
there is an inherent grace. Not so when I
try it - my moves have “You Tube
sensation” written all over them. I do
them anyway. In my twenty years at
Fitness Incentive, I never saw anyone
smirk at an attempt to get into shape.
When I get discouraged or lazy, I
remember the dress.
I didn't get a Jackie dress. I ordered and
returned three dresses until I
coincidentally found a modern version of
the dress my mother wore twenty-nine
years ago. It's a Ralph Lauren cocktail
dress, navy blue, hitting just above the
knee. The bodice is studded with matte
sequins that continue down the long
sleeves. The skirt is made from a weighty
jersey fabric with gentle ruching at the
waist. I hadn't seen it in person so my
anticipation was significant. I tore the
packing tape and lifted the lid. A
Princess Moment! I held it up and sniffed
it, as if it would have a scent. It was
“The One.”
Of course, I will wear it with the fancy
earrings. Just like Mom did.
~~end~~
“We have five months,” Eileen said.
“We can get a lot done in five months.
I really needed to get back in the
game. My brothers had unexpectedly
died, middle age struck hard and
getting older is not for sissies. Grief
and eggplant parmigiana can do a lot
of damage in a short amount of time.
Add new aches and pains and my
primary goal had become how to be
pain-free, not fit. I explained my
concerns to Eileen.
“Everything hurts,” I blurted out.
It turns out that pain-free and fit are
not mutually exclusive. The same
Eileen that had worked me (to the
bone) in a Fantastic Four Challenge
Spring 2016 FIT to Print
Christine Jelley, a longtime FI member,
will be Mother of the Groom this spring.