Brave Enough To Be Bliss

I didn’t try my dress on again until the day of the wedding and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had remembered . Kylee’s dress was stunning, and she appeared to both look and feel as beautiful on that day as I had hoped she would. And it was worth each and every penny spent just to see her so happy! I said many thankful prayers that day. She had made it. She had worked hard on herself, and it was so wonderful to see it all pay off with the joy she was experiencing on this day. In addition to seeing lots and lots of gold dresses after the wedding, I also saw an article online about wedding do ’ s and don’ts. The headline was something about how popular champagne-colored dresses shouldn’t be worn to a wedding. Well, the champagne color wasn’t too much different than the gold dress I had worn . So, when I remembered her saying I could order the pink I wondered if she knew about the rule. Was that gold too light a gold and she wanted a darker gold? I had tried so hard to get the color she wanted me to wear, but now I was panicking that I had done something wrong. And the pictures, how would I ever be able to look at the pictures knowing what I may have unintentionally done?

And then I stopped myself. What was done was done. I knew the rule about not wearing white to a wedding, but I didn’t know the rule had extended beyond white. It hadn’t even occurred to me to look for today’s rules and no one had mentioned it. The lady at the bridal store knew I was the mother of the bride; Kylee was with me when I ordered it. So, I just stopped my brain right there and decided if anyone wanted to judge me, they were just going to have to judge me, and I wasn’t going to let it ruin the photos from that special day with my daughter. I share the story, however, because it’s a good example of the need for all of us to clearly state what we want or don’t want so there’s less room for error, and to give people the benefit of the doubt because we can never know what they are or aren’t aware of. I have

learned there is no such thing as common sense, personally or professionally. The only thing we can count on is that humans know what they know when they know it. To make assumptions or insist that “everybody” knows something is simply unfair. Several years ago, seeing that article after the wedding would have ruined the memories and the photos, as I would have been beating myself up for not knowing what I didn’t know . And a few years back, if someone had told me about it on the day of her wedding it would have been absolutely devastating. Not so much because of the color, but because it would seem to me that anyone who would say that would be implying I did it on purpose. By this point in the book, you know what Kylee means to me, so there could be no deeper insult. Please use this example to stop yourself from saying things that could potentially devastate another human

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