[jdviole2]

Helena loved to shop for clothes. She had what I considered very good taste as far as knowing what she would look good in. Though she never trusted her own feelings on that subject. She always wanted to have someone along to help her decide what to buy, if anything. She and her mom would go out almost every Saturday and go shopping. She very seldom bought anything but it was a nice outing for she and her mom after we got married. I didn't mind since it gave me an afternoon to be by myself. Unfortunately her mom died at a very young age in 1979. Helena asked me if I would be willing to come along on the shopping trips and take her mom's place as advisor. I only had two conditions. The first was that we weren't going shopping every Saturday. We had to do other things too (like the Zoo for instance). The second condition was that I was going to be brutal in my opinions. Her mom would say that a lot of things looked good on Helena and then sit patiently by as she tried the same things on over and over, switching back and forth until she finally decided what, if anything, she wanted to buy. I didn't think I could stand that (unending love or not). We put it to the test quite early. Not long after her mom died she wanted to go shopping. I think she missed her mom very much and wanted to try to relive something. I reminded her of my second condition and she assured me that it would be OK with her. So she is in the changing room with a bunch of clothes and I am waiting outside with a sales woman. Now the role of the saleswoman is to say that everything looks good on a person, the more expensive the better it looks. Helena comes out in an outfit that really didn't suit her at all. She asked how she looked. The saleswoman said it looked good on her and I told her it made her look like an overfed hippo. Helena goes back in to change and I notice the saleswoman is staring daggers at me. I told her, "hey I just saved us two hours of agony". Helena came out a few more times and finally I told her that the outfit looked really good on her. That outfit became one of her favorites. She told me later that my appraising style took a bit of getting used to but she liked it, and liked my taste. I got so that I could buy clothes for her on my own (blouses and such like, I never bought pants or things that really needed trying on) and we never had to take any of them back. Helena liked mostly casual clothes. Jeans, T-shirts, things like that. At home she wore mostly jogging suits. But when she got dressed up to go out somewhere she did make herself look extrememly nice. As I mentioned in an earlier post she didn't wear much makeup but just enough to accent what she had and make up for what she thought she didn't. I was always proud to be seen with her whenever, and where ever. For myself I don't care how I look. Striped pants and polka dot shirts would be fine with me. Helena always worried how I would look and picked out the clothes she wanted me to wear. Don't get me wrong I know what goes together, and what looks best on me, I just don't care. I think some of our friends were a little disappointed in me at her funeral when they saw how I dressed her. I put her in jeans and her all time favorite T shirt. She wouldn't have looked good in her good clothes anymore anyway. She had lost so much weight and the clothes themselves were so out of style. I hope and I think I know she would have approved of my choices. I have a matching T shirt that I am putting away so I will have it to wear when my time comes. That way we can go together. (Even though some friends were disappointed many more of them thought the jeans and shirt more than appropriate and laughed when they saw them). Our first picture today shows the problem with candid photography. It shows Helena at the trial garden again shot from a distance without her knowing. Wouldn't you know she closed her eyes just as I shot the picture. In todays digital world I would just have shot again but when you had to wait for the film to be developed the time had long passed. Anyway I love the top and wanted to see another shot of it. The second picture is Helena at Disneyland in the late 70's. The third picture is from her dad taken in 1974. I like most of his shots and hope I find the negatives soon, since the prints don't really do her justice. The fourth photo is Helena resting in Colorado in the early 80's. I like watching her hair style change over the vacations. She really only had two styles. One was long and one was short. She fixed her hair in many different ways depending on how it fell that day. The fifth picture is also from her dad in 1974. The last shot is similiar to ones posted before. From California.