I drove to Albany on Sunday morning to catch the train to New York City. It was a blissful hour and a half of alone time where my mind did nothing but think about some of the things that happened at the shop and in my personal life during the past week. It was a week rich with stories of love and joy…the kind of week that makes for amazing memories.
Heading south on Route 7, I remembered the three women who poured out of their car at 11 a.m. sharp one morning last week and proceeded to stand in the parking lot looking up and around like they needed to stretch their legs and get their bearings. They came into the shop with wide eyes, I said hi, and one of them asked me if I was Joy. I confirmed I was and she told me that she wanted to meet me because I had given her friend a pair of knitted knockers.
“You really helped my friend feel good,” she told me, “I had never heard of knitted knockers – and she hadn’t either before you gave them to her. They are really working for her. She is so happy.” After a pause and a deep look into my eyes she said, “Thank you.”
We’ve given away quite a few knitted knockers since we hosted a knitting circle at the shop back in February where eighteen local women showed up to make them. Knitted Knockers are prosthetic breasts for mastectomy patients. They are lighter and more comfortable than silicone prosthetic breasts. There are knitting groups across the country that make them for hospitals and other places like the bra shop where they are given away for free.
The woman went on to tell me that she lives in New York State and that she’s started a knitted knockers circle over there because she wanted to pay this happiness forward. She called around to hospitals and found one upstate that didn’t have a knockers supply. Her group will be knitting knockers and donating them to that hospital. My eyes welled up and she looked away from me and said, “Please don’t cry.” It was too late.
Somewhere on the Bennington bypass, I remembered the story that Courtney told me about the 12 year old she “fit” for her first real bra on one of my days off. She told me the girl walked into the shop with her Mom all huddled up trying to cover her chest, and left standing up tall with four bras in her little pink bag. About the only thing that makes me cry harder than helping women find joy in this bra world is helping young girls feel good in this bra world. More tears as I pressed on and touched around to find Kleenex in the middle console.
Cruising through Hoosick, I passed by that place with all the moose and cow decorations on the roof and in the parking lot. Someday I want to stop and meet the owners because whoever they are, they must have a good sense of humor. I thought about the phone call Katherine took last week from a guy who wanted to double check that we did in fact sell lingerie. He wanted to make sure because he would be driving a half hour to get here from his work, which was another half hour from his house. He said we were the closest place he knew about that sold this kind of stuff and he wanted to get something for his girlfriend. He came, he shopped, and he left with a little somethin’ somethin’ in his little pink bag. He told Katherine that he worked in a factory and that he’d be back. He also told her he thought the shop was cool.
Going through the green lights in Troy (always a good sign), I thought about the three days in a row that I got to play golf in the last week and how lucky I was to be able to do that. Even when I’m golfing though lately, the conversation turns to bras. It’s gotten to the point where some of the ladies I golf with ask me if I can “deliver” items from the shop to the course to save them a trip into town.
This happened on Thursday last week when one of my golfer friends asked me if I could bring that bra we ordered for her when we were out of stock of the one she wanted. We had called her a couple of days ago to tell her it was in. If I could bring it to the course on Friday, she’d have cash ready for me and it would save her a trip. I love that stuff – I mean, come on…delivering bras to the golf course? Talk about mixing business with pleasure. I was planning on popping into the shop that afternoon anyway so I happily agreed to pick up her bra and bring it the next day.
Turned out that earlier that day while I was golfing, Courtney and Katherine sold the very bra we were holding for my friend. The woman they sold it to was desperate they said – she had some sort of bruise on her back and that particular bra with the soft wide straps was the only one in the whole shop that didn’t hurt her. The straps on this particular bra rested on a place away from her painful bruise. She was a 38C just like my friend and it was the only one in stock.
They had made an executive decision and this meant I had no bra to deliver. They reminded me that we had three more on order and I could tell that they felt badly about selling my friend’s bra, but that they had made the best decision they could at the time. I made it through the lights and smiled as I thought about how we all knew they did the right thing.
I saw my friend first thing in the morning the next day at the course and she said hello by asking, “Did you bring my bra?” We went for a little walk to one of the tee boxes and I told her the whole story. She took the news like a champ. She could wait, that woman couldn’t. It was the right decision.
I won’t bore you with golf stories, but there is a whole level of personal joy that I found spending some days off with my friend, Cheryl, who is from the same town I am. We went to high school together. She ferried and drove all the way from Martha’s Vinyard to come up to Vermont to partner with me in a golf tournament. We had fun, we even won a prize, and we spent a lot of time talking on the side of my stream about how the hell two girls from little old Coventry, Rhode Island got to where we are right now.
She gave me some advice and put things into perspective in a way only people who know a lot about your history can. We talked about our circle of friends and we thought a lot about one of them named Jenny who passed away back when we were 42. She died after a bout with cancer that started when she found a lump in her breast while taking a shower.
I arrived at the train station and eased into a pole position spot in the garage – another good sign. I was off to NYC on a business trip to talk about bras and JOY. I felt drunk with potent memories as I gathered my bags from the car and made the quick walk to the doors of the station. I felt strong and I was ready to drink up the stories the new week had to tell.
Bring it on.
Living to tell it all….
– Joy
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Cause these 100 proof memories are stronger than wine. They don’t take but one taste to send you out of your mind.
– George Jones
