Prayers - Miss Pitty-Pat

MISS PITTY-PAT

Dear God,

I remember with admiration, awe
and fondness, Your long-ago servant
Miss Pitty-Pat.

Very tall and very thin, she had
an incomparable fashion sense, and given other circumstances, she might well
have owned an atelier and been a creator
and arbiter of Parisian haute couture.

She wore slacks long before other women,
and strode grandly, head high,
on bright-hued very high heels,
under the shade of a pale blue, silk, ruffled, parasol.

She complemented her bronze complexion
with glorious patterned blouses and scarves, set off with flashing bracelets,
glittering necklaces and numerous rings.

She strode grandly, lady-like, wearing
high high heels, and exotically patterned turbans which she fashioned for herself. She favored large hoop earrings and colorful gloves - perhaps fingerless, perhaps lacey. She was an arresting sight to behold!
High Glamour in our back alley.

Pitty-Pat knew the garbage collection schedules in Leavenworth, Kansas, and came early on the appointed days to mine
our neighborhood trash barrels for desirable discards. (We are talking the 1940's.)

She gathered useful cast-offs in a rickety but decorated grocery cart which she pushed through our rutted, cindered, alleys.
She sorted daintily and discriminately through whatever cast-offs were set out as rubbish in the trash bins.

Miss P was daunting to me as a child, so I never spoke to her. However, our neighbor-lady, kindly Hazel Linck, often came out
to chat with Pitty-Pat, lten offering her some well-worn but usable item - perhaps
a "house-dress" - perhaps home-sewn
and adorned with colorful rickrack - or some other cast-off clothing. Whatever the piece, it was surely gratefully and gracefully accepted.

I think now of this disadvantaged lady
with sadness, but with awe and profound admiration. Hers was surely a very hard life,
but she persevered bravely, gallantly
and stylishly. She had an admirable
and remarkable spirit, and was an exemplar
of "making the best of what you have been given." She was not given much, but she employed it with innate imagination
and class.

I believe that Miss Pitty-Pat lives now among the saints and angels, very fashionable still, in slacks of gossamer and wings
of gold, her turbans glinting with diamond stars and glittering moonbeams.

Pitty-Pat, please pray for me as you stroll the stately paths of paradise!

God bless her, God! God bless her now!
She made the best of everything she was given in life. She had little, but Lord, O, Lordy, she made it grand and glorious indeed!

Amen

+ + +

The photo above is not, of course, Miss Pity-Pat,
but not a bad likeness! I wonder if she herself,
in Leavenworth, Kansas, was ever photographed. If so,
I doubt that any such likeness exists - except
in vibrant memory.

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