I’m Megan, 17, and prom always meant wearing my late mother’s lavender prom dress. She died of cancer when I was 12, and that dress became my last connection to her. After my dad remarried, my stepmother Stephanie replaced my mom’s belongings, calling them “junk,” and demanded I wear a costly designer gown instead. I refused.
On prom day, I found my mom’s dress deliberately ruined—ripped and stained. Stephanie smugly admitted it, insisting she was my “real mother now” and that I needed to let go of the past. I was devastated.
My grandma arrived, saw what happened, and spent hours repairing the dress by hand. I wore it to prom, feeling my mom with me. When I got home, my dad stood up to Stephanie, defended me and my mother’s memory, and told her he would always choose his daughter. Stephanie stormed out.
That night, we finally had peace. I hung the dress back in my closet—proof that love, and my mom’s presence, still survived.