Chocolate sampler from "Chocolate for a Lover's Heart"

The Uplifting Surprise
by Judith Bader Jones

My middle son went to The University of Kansas to study Communications. KU is a forty-five minute drive from our home. He surprised me one cold rainy Friday evening with an unannounced week-end visit and a basket of dirty clothes, the signature of dormitory living. I hugged him, tousled his blond curly hair, signature of his father, and before I could stop myself, I was saying, "Throw your laundry downstairs."

Dinner was catch-up talk. "Are you getting enough to eat? How is your money holding out? Do you need help with the algebra?"

He smiled at us and devoured his lamb chop, chased his peas in circles around his plate, drank tea, chewed his ice, and with his baseball cap askew, he was out the door for an evening at the Grand Emporium to listen to Kansas City Jazz with ‘some of the guys’.

I was caught up in a moment of, ‘surprise him … wash and fold his clothes. Press his shirts … wash the whites with the whites and the blues with the blues.’

No one was at home to say, "Get a life, Mom." The water gurgled and steamed for the Tide. Half-way down the mound of experienced clothes, layered between sweats and his red plaid flannel shirt that his Grandma Hildegarde sent to him on his eighteenth birthday, lay a bra! It hooked in front, looked like a sports bra for jogging or aerobics. The straps were slim but strong. Delicate sweetness surrounded a miniature satin rose-bud sewn above the fastener. A dainty floral scent sachet’d above my discovery. Whose?

A Mom’s dilemma . . . Do I thrash out this issue with a firm voice and my new old but grown son, or do I say, "Oh, by the way, someone lost this in your wash." Or, should I send it back to his girl friend Patti? Did it belong to Patti, our straight-A student who was majoring in physical education? (My mind stumbled over "physical.") Did it belong to a mystery girl?

I examined the bra again, held it close to my eyes. It wasn’t old, and it wasn’t new. It was sweet, but durable. I looked at the label. "Loveables" … Honestly! What size? Hmmm …!

I pulled my sweatshirt up and over my head and removed my own cross-your-heart special. The basement air felt naked and dangerous. I heard only the sounds of the working washing machine.

My found garment became molded silk against season. It was a perfect fit. If the bra fits, wear it, and like another old saying goes, ‘mother who not tell all she know get many nice things’. . . like this good bra . . . and permission not to ever again do laundry for sons who grow up to be men while studying Communications at the University of Kansas.