In The Eye of the Beholder

Note to Rascal Flatts: I understand that, after reading this story, you'll most likely want to write a song about it. I think it's right up your alley. Feel free.

It's been that kind of a day today.

I struggle, sometimes, with the superficiality of my job. It's loads of fun, but in the end I am still expected to close the deal. I've always done well in sales and always felt a little funny about it... I mean, it's not like I'm saving lives. I'm selling dresses. Important dresses, sure, but dresses. I'm working for the man and the empire. I'm not really doing anything all that meaningful.

Today, what I do mattered. Today, I was humbled and smacked upside the head for being short-sighted and cynical. Today was a good day.

You see, we have this dress. It's an old, old dress that's been hanging around the sample sale pile for at least six or seven years. The edges are yellowing and the beadwork looks like it has narrowly survived a natural disaster. The neckline is cut remarkably high, a look that screams 1994 and would make most conservative grandmothers rather happy. There is a giant, cliche, borderline farcical bow that snaps (yes, snaps... biggaudymetal snaps) on just above the badonkadonk. It's not a very pretty picture, this dress in its sorry old plastic bag.

I've been mocking this dress. I've been whining about it, threatening to donate it, and claiming that its presence alone was a threat to our credibility as a retail establishment. I've implied, nay, insisted that it could not possibly serve a purpose on this planet, ever. As you can imagine, I haven't done so subtly. I've been a big jerk to this dress.

Today. Today, the sweetest bride arrives with an army of annoyed looking women who practically vibrate around the store, exchanging unhappy phrases in Japanese. They are skeptical of price, have only so much to spend, have been treated poorly. They are protective of the bride, and they are fierce. Somehow, in the frenzy and the yelling and the buzzing, they emerge with the dress. I cringe, subtly (I do at least that much subtly), and obligingly hang my nemesis in the fitting room.

It isn't until the bride is undressing that I see the scars... the open, new, painfully raw scars that are freckled across her torso and neck. They huddle in with the lumps of small tumors, bruises, and unnatural indentations. The cancer, she says, took her hair... she had beautiful hair. I, for once, have nothing to say.

I know I don't have to tell you how this all went down. You are smarter than me, and you've seen it already. That dress, that ugly, forgotten, embarrassing dress, covered those scars perfectly. It will take work to make it beautiful, but the work will be done, and the beginning is there. She had a thousand dollars to spend, and bought my least favorite dress at $125. It will be rebeaded, restored, refinished, and it will cover her scars. She had been looking for quite awhile for a dress that would make her feel safe and beautiful on her wedding day, and that dress will be the one. She has an impossibly wonderful smile.

There was joy, today. They thanked me, and hugged me, and left happy. I sat in the back room for awhile and let myself cry.

We are short-sighted. We look so often at something, someone, and fail to see the potential through the missing pieces, the stains, the broken parts. We forget that God is in the timing. We forget that He takes broken edges and fits them together like puzzle pieces, creates something beautiful from something tattered, harbors a perfect plan for what we have rejected. Often it is the smallest of things that reminds us. I am reminded today.

A Few Good Men

There has been a cute couple trend going on at AniA lately. Normally, I land pretty solidly on the side of tradition: the groom shouldn't see the gown until the wedding day. However, I've been seriously enjoying the fiances that have been showing up lately to help with the selection process.

Take, for example, the bride who bought her dress this Monday. She and her fiance are from out of town, and every time they come they make a weekend of it, stay somewhere, do cute little couple-y things. I love to watch the two of them interact. They have this fantastically casual vibe, an ease with each other, that sucks me right in. I believe in those two. They're also getting married in a castle in Scotland. So, I mean, come on.

I also dig the sweet couple that recognized me on the MAX the other day. You have to love a man who will go out of his way to say hello to a bridal consultant, and compliment her on her service skills, and talk about how difficult it is to find cute shoes. Love it.

Then there's the fiance who sits in our store for hours on end while his bride goes over every detail. She's spent more time with us than anyone else I can think of, and still he is patient, still he waits and comments and praises and adores. She has most definitely found the right guy.

My favorite thing about men in the store is the way they look at the bride when she does her "reveal." Fiances, dads, friends... all of them look right at her face. Women, well, we all go straight to the dress, but not the men. Not one of them sees the gown first... they simply see the girl. I LOVE that. Just love it.

Way to go, boys, way to go.