I’ve been packing up Janet’s clothes lately to give away. It’s been five months since she died of cancer, so I guess it’s about time.
One thing I’ve noticed in particular is that she had a lot of old clothes. Janet had only one requirement for clothing—it must be comfortable. I’ve found a few nice things, like the pantsuit she wore to our daughter’s wedding. It was black with a wide white collar. She put on her strand of pearls, and she was ready to go. Even our daughter approved.
Most of all, I am reminded why she dressed the way she did. Generally, she did not dress for other people. She couldn’t care less what anybody thought. There was an exception, and it was one of the reasons I loved her so much.
As a long-time probation officer she dressed in old clothing because she wanted the felons who were on her caseload to relax around her because she was one of them. And in some ways she was. She grew up in the mountains of Appalachia and knew how hard life could be. Her father was a coal mine owner so Janet was not in want of anything. After being in coal dust all day, her father liked to put on nice clothes when he went out. He reminded me of the Duke of Windsor (the guy who gave up being King of England for the woman he loved. Now he knew how to select nice clothes.) My mother-in-law was the business side of the family enterprise, and she liked to wear good duds too. They earned the pleasure of looking good.
Janet knew, on the other hand, if she showed up at a probationer’s house, dressing like her parents dressed, walls would go up and her people would regard her as snooty outsider sticking her nose into their business. But when she arrived wearing decade-old clothes, they relaxed and accepted her as a friend who knew how tough times were. Times are always tough for people without jobs or those who have to stitch together a life with several part-time jobs.
She had empathy, sympathy and a genuine desire to help her probationers to earn a better life. Janet was a realist too. She was all too aware some of these probationers would stay in trouble with the law all their lives, and she accepted the sad fact she would also have to help their children and grandchildren through the judicial system.
No matter what happened, they knew they had a friend who did not look down on them, who did not try to make them feel like they were beneath anyone and who would look them straight in the eyes to tell them what they had to do to make life better for themselves.