Channeling Rena in the H&M Dressing Room
One Sunday in January, my twelve year-old and I had an hour between appointments in the Denver suburbs, and found ourselves at a mall. In the age of “add to cart,” we rarely shopped together, and she had grown so much in the previous several months that none of her clothes fit. As we wandered into H&M, my daughter’s eyes lit up. She grabbed armfuls of clothes, including a pair of acid washed jeans with a chain that went from the front pocket to a back belt loop, each link a tiny heart. Maybe they won’t fit, I thought hopefully, as I trailed behind her in a daze. The Friday before, she had refused to go to school, her second school of the year, and one that had seemed promising only a couple of weeks before. I felt like I was hiking along the edge of a cliff in the fog; I had no idea what was going to happen, or how close we were to the edge.
As we crammed ourselves into the dressing room, I thought about my maternal grandmother, Rena, who was an expert shopper, and whom I think of whenever I’m in a dressing room. When I was a child, shopping with Rena was an event. We’d make a whole day of it, and she, my mom and I would go to Marshall’s and TJ Maxx, and then, once Rena was satisfied that we had found all good brands in my size at the best possible prices, we could go to lunch and to the mall.
In a dressing room, Rena was a master chef, taking things off of hangers, requesting different sizes from sales associates, commenting on how flattering each item was as she analyzed the places where clothes hung awkwardly, or were too tight. She shared her opinions with varying degrees of tact, but even if I liked something she didn’t, she indulged me, and I was allowed to get it.
Rena wore cashmere and pearls into her nineties. She liked for me to look “pulled together,” and to have “outfits.” She sewed my Christmas dresses each year, and sometimes a matching one for my American Girl Molly doll, and I had white tights and patent leather Mary Janes for The Nutcracker. She would file and polish my nails with clear polish for special occasions, her rings that I would inherit when she died rubbing against my fingers as she worked.
In addition to being well dressed, and fastidiously clean, Rena preferred for our lives to be orderly as well. My grandfather, Jim, was a career army colonel; I grew up hearing stories of parties where people wore white gloves, of life on army bases in Okinawa and in Germany. When my parents divorced, Rena and Jim moved in with us part-time while my mom went to graduate school. Rena and Jim did household chores, drove my brother and me around, and cooked for us, providing predictability during a chaotic time.
Rena balanced her controlling nature with a seemingly contradictory embrace of skinny dipping and roller coaster riding. She and Jim were competitive roller skaters and avid skiers. She laughed until she couldn’t speak, and one of my earliest memories was of knowing that she wasn’t like most grandmothers. She was fun. She took me to run my first mile, and spent hours swimming with me in the lake at the cottage in New Hampshire where she and my grandfather retired. Five years after her death, I think of her daily, wishing I could share a funny story or a writing success. Despite her edge, she was my biggest cheerleader.
It occurs to me now that perhaps, Rena’s orderliness was a way to maintain equilibrium in an uncertain life– a husband who was gone for up to a year at a time, leaving her at home with young children. And then, when she was in her sixties, finding herself in the role of primary caregiver again, rather than fun grandmother, to my brother and me. She could not control much of this, but she could make sure that we had jeans that fit and polished fingernails.
I didn’t realize how much I had internalized Rena’s standards until I became a mom myself, and saw my own two daughters’ personalities take root. My younger daughter leans toward feral. She’s usually covered in marker, her hair knotted and clothes stained, despite my efforts, which, I admit, have waned with time. On the rare days when she lets me brush her hair, I text my mom a photo with the caption, “Rena would be proud.”
While millennial and Gen X parents are taught to embrace our children’s big feelings, telling them in our best Doctor Becky voices, “You’re a good kid who’s having a hard time,” Rena could not endure her loved ones’ distress. There were many things I didn’t tell her, because I knew that my sadness compounded her own, especially after my grandfather died in 2004. In her mind, my early parenting years were idyllic, mostly because I only shared the highlight reel with her. I have expanded my own window of tolerance for my children’s unhappiness over the years, but am still learning to make peace with my own.
As I stood in the dressing room of H&M on that January Sunday, I didn’t know that it was the beginning of our official status as homeschoolers– a title I had never wanted, and am learning to embrace. I wondered whether my daughter would ever return to school, and what this educational track might mean long-term. Mostly, I just wanted her to be okay. Like Rena used to do, I channeled my deepest desires the only way I could in the moment. I hung the discarded items on their hangers, made a pile of the clothes we were keeping, and I assured my daughter that I loved her new jeans.
-Megan Vos
Megan Vos is a writer, educator, mom, and native New Hampshirite who lives in Boulder, CO. After many years of writing nonfiction, she is working on a novel, which feels simultaneously freeing and terrifying. Megan loves playing cards with her family, walks with her dog, spring skiing, good books, and strong lattes. A former producer of Boulder’s Listen to Your Mother show, she has also shared her stories in Story Collective shows. Megan’s essays have been published in Motherscope, Kindred, Motherwell, Journal of Expressive Writing, and MUTHA. You can find her on Substack at megansvos.substack.com.