Inauspicious Beginnings

I came up with this idea one Saturday. I had gotten a newsletter from the City Mission, because I donate to them sometimes. I don’t always read them, but this time I did, and they covered the stories of three women and their children staying in the Family Life Center. They didn’t explicitly say so, but I got the impression that some or all of the women staying there are in recovery, which is a big deal to me because my mother has been in recovery for almost 20 years.

Recovery is a long and tough journey, and I’ve never been able to imagine what it would be like. Doing it with small children has to be overwhelming, because frankly, parenting children under normal circumstances is overwhelming, at least to me.

There was a woman who had three children, including one baby girl who’s just about to turn one. And it just so happened that I was about to buy next year’s summer clothes for our girls (clearance racks!), because there was a sale on at Kohl’s. Why not get that baby girl a little something while I was at it? Baby clothes are so fun to buy, and I don’t have any babies to buy for at the moment.

So we headed out to the store – and it was closed. Power was out. Power was out in just about the whole town, in fact, with WalMart and Target closed, too.

We sat on the hood of my car for a while, trying to figure out what to do next. It was awfully nice out, whether we got to go shopping or not. We eventually settled on the idea of going back home and going through the girls’ clothes to see what could be given away.

Only it turned out that my daughter hadn’t grown out of nearly as much as I’d thought. But I posted it on Freecycle to see what would happen. I wanted it to go straight to someone who could use it, instead of passing through a thrift store.

I got nothin’.

Two days later, I ended up just throwing everything into one of those “CLOTHING SHOES DROP BOX” thingies at the back of a church. Many of these don’t go to thrift stores, but to used clothing salespeople who sort it for recycling or sale overseas. Nonetheless, a tiny bit of money goes to the organization that hosts the dropoff box, I believe.

It wasn’t much, but this thing was rollin’.