My youngest graduates from high school in a few weeks. This is her prom dress:

She wanted something with sleeves, and all the formalwear shops only carry things with no sleeves. She loves thrifting anyway, and we found this 70s era gown at Darling Vintage downtown. (For $8.)

It’s so perfect and I love it so much for her. It’s dreamy and romantic and wistful and unique. She looks gorgeous in it, but she tells her own stories online these days so I’ll let her share that view.

It appears to be handmade, custom-made for someone years ago, and yet it fits her almost exactly. Perhaps at 17, everything fits exactly, like some kind of Sisterhood of the Travelling Vintage Dress.

It did require a few small modifications, and I was adjusting the inner slip to have a bit more freedom for walking the other night when it hit me: I miss my mom.

I didn’t cry much when she died. Even though I cry so easily at commercials and Broadway musicals and paper cuts, I rarely cry when it’s something real. Self-protection, I suppose.

And I already lived hours away from her, so I can easily go about my day-to-day without noticing that anything is missing.

But while I was sewing the soft silk lining of this prom dress I realized how much my mom would have loved to see it. How she would have had some confident and excellent advice for making the adjustments. How she would have sent my daughter a selection of four or five cute evening bags to choose from, just because.

Sometimes – a lot of times, frankly – I think I was too soft on my kids as they grew up. I asked for very little from them, I wanted their childhood to be a magic fairyland of joy and fun and learning cool new stuff. And now they sometimes struggle with discomfort, especially my oldest who can’t seem to make the connection between sometimes-hard, sometimes-boring, all the way through to eventually-awesome.

But I guess I wouldn’t make different choices, if I had to do it over again. Because more than anything, I think I showed them what unconditional love really looks like. I hope they know I have their back in any circumstances, and would never think less of them for any show of weakness.

It’s only now that she is gone that I realize my mother was in my corner, too. Maybe not as soft, but just as loyal. It’s a tough thing to imagine going the rest of my life without that cushion.

Time for a good cry, I think.