Fashion Friday

About 7 years ago I found the perfect handbag from Banana Republic. It had round bamboo handles, canvas and oh-so stylish. I can't find an online picture of it but believe me, it was just perfect. One of the things I loved the most was the way it opened and closed with ease.

I felt so sassy and vogue strutting along with that purse.

But my world was about to come crushing down.

I had just found out that my former husband had been having an affair. The betrayal sliced through my being and the pain was crippling. My body and mind shut down, yet my spiritual connection to God and His peace was ever present.

I began losing weight fast...30 lbs in a few weeks. Although I ate some food everyday, my heart rate was so high I burned away those calories and then some. I had seen so many people, both men and women, go through this, since I was a matrimonial paralegal and dealt with them on a close level, but I never could understand the intense pain they were going through and how it affected their bodies like so drastically. Although I cared dearly about my clients, I never could sympathized with them...that was about to change.

It was about that time when a receptionist at the firm, a woman who was a tad on the wild side, got herself a new boyfriend. This new boyfriend had gone to an annually required meeting with his company and brought home some 'handouts'.

This particular receptionist thought it would be a great idea to put one of these 'handouts' on each desk in the office before anyone got in in the morning.

When I pulled into the parking lot I wiped away my usual morning tears, stepped out of my car (swinging my new Banana Republic canvas handbag)and ran smack into a desperate client. I told him to follow me straight into my office and I will sit and talk with him.

As I stepped into the entrance to my office I spied a bright, banana yellow 'handout' on my desk and quickly swept it into my easy to open purse, hoping that my client didn't see it.

My day was so busy, I forgot all about the banana 'handout'.

That night, in the middle of the night, I had to get rushed to the hospital. I had a high fever and was in a terrible amount of pain. My former husband did not want to drive me, he didn't care much about anything but his new girlfriend, so my daughter took me. She was in the midst of her final year in college and was having her thesis project presented the following morning.

My daughter stayed with me at the hospital all night but had to leave in the early morning hours right before my emergency surgery. In fact, all three of my children were in college at the time and all three of them were dealing with finals. I had been through surgeries before and I insisted that their finals were more important than sitting in the hospital with me.

My surgeon, who knew my former husband and knew about the affair before I did, wanted someone from my family at the hospital while I was in surgery. I was too out of it to make any phone calls so he asked if it was alright to go through my purse to find my address book.

Of course the bright, banana 'handout' fell out of my purse and went flying across the hospital floor. He went over and picked it up, looked it over and put it back into my purse. Next he called my sister in Staten Island.

The nurses put my purse under the gurney I was on and it seemed like every time they moved me the purse would open, spill out and topple over exposing the increasingly embarrassing 'handout'.

After the surgery (The surgeon and an oncologist did the surgery and they didn't find cancer, just a benign mass)I woke up to find my oldest son leaning over and kissing my cheek. All I had the strength to whisper to him was, "Dave...please... take the condom out of my purse.....put it in your pocket now.....don't ask me any questions....I will explain later."

The look on his face was priceless.

I recovered, in many ways. God is so good to me.

When I was up and about I took a trip to a local store. An elderly woman stopped me and told me that my purse was lovely.

Right then and there I emptied it and handed it to her.