SIGH

Last month a lady came by our church and she was distraught. Like...screaming and crying distraught.  She had just found out that her mother had passed away, and she was taking it very hard.

I don't know this lady, except that I see her at church when she's here, but apparently she doesn't have very much in life, and she needed some clothes to wear to her mother's funeral.  The pastor asked if I had any clothes of a certain size that she could borrow, and because I like clothes and have been many sizes in my day, I did. 

I went home and grabbed as many of the things I had in that size that would be appropriate for a funeral, thinking that she'd pick something and I'd take the rest home. However, in the 20  minutes I was gone, the lady apparently had a complete come apart and ran out of the building and went home.  OK, then.  So the pastor loads me (and the clothes) up in his truck and takes me to the lady's house.  Instead of finding something that would fit her, she took it all. 

I wasn't mad, because the lady was obviously upset, and I just figured that I'd never see any of that stuff again.  I have a lot of clothes, so I didn't think it would be a big deal if she kept what I'd given her. I pretty much wrote it all off.  No biggie.

When I finally saw the lady again a few weeks later, she told me she had worn one of the dresses and would have it cleaned and bring everything back as soon as she could.  I told her to take her time, and I didn't see her for a couple of weeks.  I finally just decided to tell her to keep everything, if she wanted it.  I didn't want her to worry about having everything cleaned or worried that I'd be mad if she didn't bring it back.  However, the next time I saw her, she'd actually brought everything back and left it in my office.  I offered to let her keep everything, but she declined, so I went to take the stuff home and discovered that yes, she had the one dress dry-cleaned, which was awesome!  She had then stuffed it in a bag with the rest of the clothes, which had been sitting in her cigarette smoky house for over a month. I now have to take a load of reeking clothes back into my house. I hate cigarette smoke.  I wish she's kept the clothes.

Also, and I feel kind of bad about this, one of the dresses I gave her I had retrofitted into a Halloween costume. It wasn't gaudy or flashy, but it happened to be in with the clothes I got out of the closet.  That was the one she chose to wear to her mother's funeral. I cringe.