My mother was very sentimental person. She kept in good condition the things that were dear to her, items dating back to her baby years, kept in good condition by her mother, my grandmother. Among the items that I inherited from her that I treasure most are a gold pendant with bite marks and three pieces of baby dresses.
Hand-stitched dresses made from pineapple leaf fibre fabric.
The dresses, my mother told me, were made from pineapple leaf fibre fabrics, painstakingly sewn one stitch at a time by hand. I cannot imagine the amount of effort and time put into making them. The sparsely woven fabrics make them appear almost sheer but they are stiff to the touch. The size of each dress is different, giving rise to the assumption that they were made at different times of her young life, most probably for important occassions like her baptism and such.
She was born in 1925. That makes these dresses at least eighty years old. This is all I know of these priceless “artifacts”. I regret that I did not spend time to get to know more of her life, more of the things that she would eventually bequeath to me when she was alive. I am sure hers was a life worth telling, and there are interesting stories behind each and every one of those items.