The Red Underwear

We move through our time on this earth doing a zillion and ten things, with a million and one goals, a couple thousand to-do lists. But in our minds are bigger thoughts: I want to turn my kids into good people, I want to leave the world a little better than I found it, I want to do some good. I want to touch someone’s life. And often – in the cosmic humor that surrounds us – we raise amazing people, make things better, touch people in amazing ways but don’t know, or never see.

Sarah is one of my oldest and best friends. Kay, her mom, has cancer. A really bad kind. A hope-with-all-your-might-for-the-best-while-the-practical-part-of-your-brain-that-you-hate-makes-the-inevetable-plan kind. We’re all functioning right now on the force-of-will gear. It’s the only one we have.

And while I have held Sarah close while she has cried in anger and fear, I have thought about her mom who I have known since I was sixteen and it’s simply incomprehensible to me to have a world without her in it.

My adolescence was…poor. Poor is a word, so let’s use it. I don’t care to discuss it much  now, because through both positive and negative forces, that is not my life any more and I am grateful. And I feel that dwelling on it, discussing it ad nauseam, or wearing it as some sort of survivor’s badge of honor diminishes the sincerity of my gratitude. But in this case it is relevant, so I must mention it. My adolescence was poor and I spent a fair amount of energy coordinating escapes. And once I had my driver’s license and a vehicle, escape I did. Often. Often to Sarah’s.

And although I did not talk much about my motivations for finding an elsewhere, it was evident that that was what I was doing. I was there a lot. And I often stayed longer than planned. And when I think back on it, I know now that there is no way Sarah’s parents could have extended the quantity of generosity it took to tolerate an extra teenager in their bathroom and refrigerator as often as they did without an awareness of why I was there.

I did not go away to college at the beginning of my freshman year, I went in the middle. Sarah, who was a year behind me in school, did her best to be excited for me while clearly dreading the day when I would pack up my car and drive away. So both in my efforts to find a safe haven to mentally prepare myself for moving away from home, and to spend as much time with Sarah as I could before the final launch, I was at their house with an utterly predictable regularity.

The weekend before I was scheduled to leave, lounging on Sarah’s couch while reading a book, Kay walked into the living room and announced she had a going away present for me. In her hands was a small white box tied with a ribbon. I was truly startled, and touched, and took the box and untied the bow.

Inside the box, wrapped in tissue, were three pairs of outrageously red undies. I looked up at Kay and she said simply, “No woman should go off to college without red underwear.”

I looked at the bold, saucy underthings and suddenly I was worldly. I was sophisticated. I was ready, in as complete a way as I was capable of being as an eighteen-year-old, for whatever this world was going to throw at me. And that, obviously, is what Kay really wanted to me to have.

I think so often these days about the time I spent safe at Sarah’s parents’ house and think of how very many things about those days shaped the me that is here now.

From Kay I learned that food tastes better when served from heavy, earthenware bowls than it ever will from dainty, delicate, china.

I learned that dancing with abandon is infinitely more joyous than dancing with style.

I learned that bread is really only a delivery mechanism for real, creamy butter.

And I learned that the me that is true and unfiltered will always be more interesting and more lovable than the one I put on on purpose.

I have told the story of the red underwear many times since it happened, and many more times in recent months as people in my life have been made aware of what’s happening with Kay. But it only occurred to me recently that maybe Kay didn’t know the story from my point of view. Or that she didn’t know how precious the comfort of her home was to me as a lonely teen-ager. And I don’t want this to be one of those moments that gets lost in the universe’s odd design where she never gets to be aware of how deeply she touched a life. I want her to know.

I want her to know that way back in the mid-80’s, her gift of a safe, warm house helped make my present livable, and that her gift of racy lingerie helped make my future attainable.

If you don’t have any red knickers in your lingerie drawer right now, go get some. If there’s a woman in your life who needs some external bolstering, go buy her some. Every woman needs red underwear. Because there’s not much we can’t face if we’re properly armored in a pair of audacious, scarlet undies.