For Catherine Malatesta, junior prom was an especially significant night: After months of being treated for stage 4 cancer, she had just been released from the hospital the day before and was ready to embrace the milestone evening like a normal teenager. Wearing a gorgeous dark blue dress, Catherine looked and felt absolutely beautiful — and she ended up having the night of her dreams.A few days after prom, Catherine was admitted back into Boston Children's Hospital, where she died three months later. But four of her friends have come up with a way to keep the Catherine's incredible spirit alive: by wearing the same prom dress she wore to their own respective proms. It's a heartbreaking and significant gesture that Catherine's mother, Jennifer Goodwin, has dubbed "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Prom Dress." "It makes me so happy that these girls want to honor her in such a simple, yet incredibly powerful way," Jennifer told TODAY. "They're carrying Catherine's spirit with them. 

She will forever be a part of their hearts and souls but wearing the dress is an outward physical acknowledgment of that love.""The Sisterhood of the Traveling Prom Dress" is made up of two of Catherine's friends from her hometown, Jillian Danton and Lauren Hourican, and two that she went to camp with in New Hampshire, Emma Schambers and Carly Blau. Jillian was the first to wear the dress to her prom last Friday."l definitely felt her with me the whole time and it was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything in the world," Jillian told TODAY. "Catherine was always a very happy and positive person and I really felt that positive energy."Next, Emma will wear the dress to her prom in Rhode Island, followed by Lauren in Massachusetts and then Carly in California."For a parent who has lost a child, the hardest part is you think people are going to forget about them," Jnnifer told TODAY. "It's important for the parent to keep that spirit alive. The fact that this group of girls wants to do this on their own just helps me to grieve and helps me to move forward."

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Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu U.S. Minor Outlying Islands U.S. Virgin Islands Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Åland Islandsshort prom dresses peach Shail K style 3901 Royal featured inside the NEW 2015 Seventeen PROM Issue!prom dress stores in austin tx New York Dress AD featuring Shail K. inside the new issue of TeenProm 2015! Mrs.Alabama, Mrs.California and Mrs.Texas looking gorgeous in style #KK3157ARLINGTON, Mass. — “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” now has a real-life version: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Prom Dress. The last time many of Catherine Malatesta’s friends saw her, she was wearing a huge smile and the deep blue, shimmery dress at her junior prom.

Four days later, battling a rare cancer, she went into the hospital and never left. Now, four of Catherine’s friends are honoring her by wearing that dress to their own proms, a gracious gesture her mother named after “Traveling Pants.” And, like the pair of jeans in the books and movies that magically fits four teenage girls of different shapes and sizes, Catherine’s dress works for all of them, with only temporary hemming for two of the girls. “When each girl tried it on, it fit each one of them beautifully despite all having very different body types,” said Catherine’s mother, Jennifer Goodwin. There won’t be any scheduling conflicts; the girls go to different schools, and their proms are on different dates. Another friend of Catherine’s already has asked to wear the dress to her prom next year, while Catherine’s seventh-grade cousin has asked Goodwin to save it for her prom, years down the road. “It’s a way of keeping her with me,” said Jillian Danton, 17, who wore the dress to her junior prom at Arlington High School in April.

“All of us being able to have this piece of her is healing.” Catherine was a bubbly girl with an easy self-confidence and a silly sense of humor. She loved to act in school plays, taught religious education to first-graders, gladly debated anyone on any topic, and was the life of the party. “Everyone knew her as the nice girl who made people laugh,” said Carly Blau, a friend from summer camp who plans to wear the dress to her senior prom next month at Beverly High. Catherine played field hockey and was on the Arlington High crew team. In autumn 2014, she told her parents she was having some pain in her shoulder. They thought it was an athletic injury, but after doctors’ visits, they got the diagnosis: Catherine, 16, had epithelioid sarcoma, an aggressive cancer. She started chemotherapy the day after Christmas, then had radiation, then simultaneous courses of both. She also participated in a clinical trial. But the cancer had spread to her lungs and spine.

She died Aug. 2, a little over two months after her prom. The idea for the traveling prom dress was born when Catherine’s mother called Jillian about three months after Catherine died and asked if she would like to wear it to her prom. Two months later, Goodwin invited some of Catherine’s other friends over to pick out something to remember her by. The girls saw the sleek blue prom dress hanging on her closet door. “One of us said, ‘We should wear it to our proms,’ and we all said, ‘Catherine would love that,'” said Emma Schambers, who plans to wear the dress to her senior prom in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, on May 13. The gown has a halter-style neckline that covered the port Catherine had for her medications. Catherine had lost her hair, so her mother bought a wig that a hairdresser styled into an updo that framed her face with a braid. A makeup artist evened out her skin tone, which had been dotted by acne caused by her treatments. Photos from that night show a blissful-looking girl with a glowing smile, even though she was frail after being released from the hospital just the night before.

“She looked at me and said, ‘Mom, for the first time in a long time, I actually feel beautiful,'” Goodwin said. Through months of grueling cancer treatments, she had been forced to miss out on some important things in her life: the lead in a school play, a choral trip to Italy and a counselor’s job at summer camp. She pushed through, never complaining, her mother said. Some weeks, her mother drove her to school for a 7 a.m. chorus practice, then picked her up to take her to Boston for cancer treatments. After a nap, she’d head back to school for afternoon classes. She ran for student council president and won. Lauren Hourican, a close friend from Arlington, recalled going to school dances with Catherine and watching her do “an absolutely insane kind of dancing.” She plans to wear the dress to her senior prom May 20. “She’ll be back out on the dance floor where she belongs,” she said. Were you interviewed for this story? If so, please fill out our accuracy form