Bra Fitting at 90–and I Don’t Mean MPH

Three years ago I discovered a special gift for ladies I know especially well: a bra fitting. No, I wouldn’t pick out anybody’s bra for them any more than I’d buy their lipstick. There’s some nursing mothers and otherwise busty women in our family, and I’ve found a gift certificate for a bra fitting is special and unique and so . . . fitting.

For Mother’s Day, I gave my mother-in-law a gift certificate for The Maddox Shop, a Dallas specialty foundations store. Do they still call them foundations? How generic! Sure, there’s plenty of other things I could have gotten her, she’s happy with anything. Wait! Back up. I’d guess I’d never give Daisy a gift-massage, for instance. While I, myself, would ooh and aah over that, I can’t imagine trying to get her up off the table afterwards! I’d have to call the fire department, and we’d just have to roll her out. 

I hoped she’d be pleased with a new bra just her size. Miss Daisy is very short and a bit round and, uh, top-heavy, which is why I thought a bra fitting would give her, well, a lift. 

A very mentally alert 90-year old, Daisy still lives alone and takes care of her own business. She’s connected to life through the telephone. On a quiet evening, she’s not above pushing that little button on her Medic-Alert, accidentally, you know, to gaze into the air to listen to voices soar through the rooms, Are you all right, Miss Daisy? 

Giggle.

Daisy’s motor functions only work when she’s sitting down. If she could move her little feet like the nimble fingers that work the television remote, we’d get a lot done in a day, she and I.

Today would be the big bra day, I mean, the day of her fitting. I pulled right in front of the specialty store, which is a stroke of luck for many reasons–all to do with the age of 90. Close is good. I unpack her walker, pull Daisy from the car in what seems like slow-motion, and set her in the direction I want her to walk. 

One thing I’ve learned: never start a conversation while a 90 year old is moving. It doesn’t work–she automatically stops so she can think about what she wants to say. I might as well sit down on the curb.

I give her time to get her legs going, then condense my words into clipped orders that inspire concentration without requiring a response, “Here, I’ll carry your purse. Step up here. We’re movin’ now! Left, scoot the walker, right, scoot, left, scoot, right. Hold on there,” I tell her. “Let me get that door. Okay, I’ve got it, let’s go.” 

I wait while she shuffles through, but she stops on the threshold to take it all in: the lace, the sheeny fabric, the colors. How could I have forgotten, she always stops in doorways. We cling there, together. Me, hovering across her with an  arm outstretched holding the door open while Daisy stands frozen in the spot. If I let go, things would certainly move. “Go, go, go, go,” I tell her, nicer than that. The saleslady is standing there looking at us, patiently, watching her air conditioning fly out the open door. 

I keep a steady eye on Daisy’s feet, and notice her left foot cupped just under the floor mat. “Stop,” I command. “Look at your feet, you’re getting tangled up in that mat.” That alerts the saleslady, who comes rushing over to assist. Daisy looked down at her feet, backs off one step, shakes the foot loose, then manages to place her right foot under the mat where the left had been. “Stop,” I say again, “Look at your right foot–you’re going to trip. Back up, back up.” We’ve made twenty steps in ten minutes. Not bad.

Once inside, Daisy goes goo-goo over hundreds of bras lining racks and shelves in an array of colorful floral. Hers will certainly be a solid bra, not unlike one who must wear sensible shoes, she knows, but still she stops to fondle a black and red bustier, and giggle. There was the day it would have been just right. It’s hard to get her moving again. If her eyes are working, her feet are not. 

God love her, we’re being ushered to a large dressing room in the rear of the store. For thirty minutes we glide that ‘away, stopping frequently to brush against softness and wonder at the figures who would fill them. She’d comment, “My, my, that’s sure pretty.”

The sweet saleslady, Jenny, finally sits her down so the fitting can commence. I remove myself from the dressing room to wander through the store, feeling fabric, touching silks. I hear Jenny say loud enough for her to hear, “Now, Miss Daisy, take off your shirt, but leave on your bra.” My mother-in-law, a retired nurse, is not shy, but, in fact, rather proud. Much scuffling and mumbling later, I hear, “Now you can take off your bra. I’ll be right back.”

We all piled into the room to ooh over the fit, the soft beige, the shine, the style, the shoulder straps, and yes, the perk. Jenny fastened her in back, then looked at her plainly and said, “Fix yourself.” There are things one needn’t  instruct a woman about how to put on a bra, and we all knew what that meant.

Daisy reached in to pull herself front and center, singing, “You put your right ___ in, you put your left __ in, you put your right ___ in, and you shake it all about . . . . that’s what it’s all about.” Giggle. She thrusts her head forward and squints into the mirror for a solid stare. The entire fitting doesn’t take as long as you would imagine because Jenny hauled the bras in for Daisy to try–exactly her kind of shopping. 

“Get two,” I suggest. “Your gift certificate is enough for two.”

“No, just one,” she answered. “I’ll save it for my dresses.” It wasn’t long for me to discover why she just wanted one bra–she had eyed the robes, picking up a pink striped, snap-down-the-front duster, “My, my, that’s pretty.” She managed to spend her gift certificate just fine.

You might wonder why I don’t bring her in a wheelchair. But that’s no fun–then there would be no story.