spynotes ::
  August 26, 2006
Pink ribbons

I spent yesterday morning in the ballroom of a suburban hotel helping my friend L. try on wedding dresses. The sale was run by an organization called Making Memories, a charity devoted to granting last wishes to women with terminal breast cancer. They collect donated wedding dresses � both used, and also designer donations and bridal shop samples and drive them around the country in a semi, selling in large ballrooms in or near large cities.

We arrived just before the opening of the first day of the sale. The organization�s founder, Fran Hansen, gave a spiel in front of the doors just before they opened, talking about what the money was used for. She mentioned how most women asked for money to take a vacation with their families, often to Disneyland. She spoke of one woman who asked for a video camera. She made videos for each birthday and Christmas for her two preschool aged daughters and also for her future grandchildren whom she would never meet. By the time she finished, pretty much all of the women contemplating the so-called happiest day of their lives were in tears.

I was also in tears. I couldn�t help but think of my college friend B. who died of breast cancer a few weeks after AJ was born. She never had the chance to buy a wedding dress. She did, however, receive a last wish grant from a different organization. I don�t know what the wish was, though. We had fallen out of touch by then. I didn�t even know she was ill. I picked up a dress donation slip.

L. and I spent nearly three hours lugging enormous white dresses around. L. must have tried on nearly 50 dresses before picking the one that I knew she would. The minute she put it on, even though it was a strapless model and that was the one thing she�d said she absolutely didn�t want, I could tell it was the one she�d walk home with. In fact, during the course of the morning, I became pretty good at figuring out which dresses the various other shoppers would choose.

Having purchased my own big white dress in the relative privacy of a bridal salon, I found the communal dressing room great fun. A more girlie place you could not find if you tried � there was even a pile of tiaras in a corner. The whole place felt like a playhouse full of little girls playing dress up. Total strangers would walk up to each other � quite possibly in their underwear � and comment on the gowns being tried on. �That one�s really great on you.� Or �I thought the other one looked better � this one flattens you out.�

In the end, most shoppers seemed to leave with a large pink gown bag and a breast cancer support ribbon, like we did. Fran Hansen was manning the cash register at the exit. "Which dress did you choose," she asked -- she seemed to know all her dresses like her own children. She told us the dress had been donated by its designer. Several volunteers came up to L and told her how wonderful it was and how beautiful she looked in it, which was true.

We celebrated L's purchase with lunch out and drinks in silly glasses and a little more shopping for less expensive things with more immediate uses at IKEA.

This morning I am confronted with the donation form. My own wedding dress, 6 years old, is gathering dust in the guest room closet. Despite the fact that I can think of no earthly use for it, I�m having a little trouble parting with it. But the form in front of me may help me out. The last line on it reads, �Dress donated in memory of�.� Maybe.

[If anyone wants to know more about the organization, click the link above or feel free to contact me.]

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