He studied hard. He worked even harder.
He finished college, the first in your family to do it, and when he walked across that stage with his cap crooked and his smile shaking, you wore the green dress then too. It had already been old by that point, though not disgracefully so. Time had faded the fabric at the seams, and the tiny stitched flowers along the neckline were beginning to loosen. But it was yours. Not borrowed, not donated, not apologetic.
A dress that had held your body through the most important moments of your life.
You wore it the day Marco was born.
You wore it the day he graduated.
And now, because there was nothing else you could afford that felt like the truth, you were wearing it to his wedding.
The church is beautiful in a way that makes you conscious of everything you are not.
