It still has the cover my mother put on it to hold the original padding in place. The cover that came with it when my grandmother had it is long gone. I put another cover over my mother’s padding almost thirty years ago.
I had not needed to use it in years but we kept it because throwing it out in the trash was unthinkable. It survived several moves, from one house to another, from our last apartment to this one. I don’t usually iron anything either because my husband and daughter do a better job. I’m usually shooed out of the way, gently most often, and told that others will iron for me.
I’m glad no one was around to do that this time because I got to iron my own dress. It looks okay.
As I waited for the iron to heat-a memory that was almost forgotten visited me.
As a young girl, I loved to watch my mother iron. There were Sunday traditions that I kept until I was in high school. Some were traditions the whole family observed: eating Sunday dinner , watching the Ed Sullivan show and the Wonderful World of Disney. But there was one that I kept because it meant I could spend time with my mother, lying on my parents’ bed and watch her iron our uniforms, our father’s shirts and handkerchiefs for the coming week.
We were in a Catholic grade school. My sister and I wore pleated jumpers, starched, short sleeved white blouses and a ribbon tie, worn like a bow, under the Peter Pan collar of our blouses. My brother wore a short sleeved white shirt, navy blue tie and navy blue pants. All of that needed to be ironed so that we could wear them to school on Monday morning.
My father, as befit a young businessman working in downtown Honolulu is those days wore a suit with long sleeved white shirts, a tie and, of course, he needed white, pressed handkerchiefs.
Our house was larger than many homes I’d visited so my mother could have done this task in the kitchen or the living room. There was no laundry room.
She chose to iron in their bedroom, my parent’s bedroom. She used the wooden ironing board I now have. It was just the right height for her. It creaked as she pressed hard to get the blouses and shirts stiff with starch and shiny with heat, wrinkle-free until we put them on in the morning.
Watching her I learned to use a damp handkerchief to get pleats to lay flat and crisp. I learned that a ribbon bow tie looks better if it’s ironed and that spray starch can make any shirt look almost new before a child put it on in the morning.
I used to like lying on my parents’ bed, watching my mother iron. It’s something I can remember now but not without tears for a time long gone and my mother who passed, taking so many memories with her, just a short time ago.
I want her back. But the price she would have paid to stay, paralyzed on one side of her body, unable to speak, unable to be independent and mobile, needing a feeding tube to stay alive...she wanted us to let her go. She had made it clear that she didn’t want anything done to prolong a life she did not want.
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