I had good intentions when I threw away all those stained and hole-ridden clothes on that hot, humid day in the middle of the tiny jungle town I called home.
I stumbled back in time mentally as I gathered each piece, noticing the stains that I tried to scrub out, to no avail. No, they had given in to the dirt and grim of the jungle around me. It was futile to struggle against the humidity and sweat and the full-on boyhood of my three-year-old anyway. These clothes were dumpster bond.
I would not pass these pieces along because I remembered…
I was maybe thirteen at the time. My parents were divorced, and my mom was raising three kids on her own on a single income. Our meals were primarily lean pockets and cereal because my mom didn’t get home until late and we were up with the sun for school each day. Any extracurricular activities required the willingness of other parents to bring me home or pick me up. I was on reduced lunch so usually I just used the dollar my mom gave me to buy something from the vending machine to avoid the condescending eye of the lunch lady when she saw I still owed on my account from the week before.
In other words, name brand clothing was not a luxury we could afford.
In fact, having new clothes of any brand was an elusive feat that would evade me for most of my teen life. So as I approached the precipice of adolescence, I found myself very uncomfortable around the “popular” kids who could afford the American Eagle polo shirts and Abercrombie and Fitch khakis. When I entered the youth group, it was no secret who the “in crowd” was. Their clothing told the story.
Since my mom was single, there was the frequent sympathetic look from the old people at the church. A pat on the head, a wink here and there, an extra peppermint, all ways of saying, “I’m sorry hun” without actually saying it.
I heard it though. The kids from broken homes always hear it.
The loudest I ever heard it though, was one night after church. It was the mid-week service, so the youth group met up on the hill at the fellowship hall. I was waiting patiently alone where I usually waited for my mom when she approached me. Anna*, the most popular girl in the youth group. Anna, who wore all the cute clothes and had a boyfriend at 15. She was talking to little 13-year-old, single-parent-child me.
“Here,” she said with a smile so forced it would make Mona Lisa roll her eyes. “I thought you might like these.”
I said thanks, I’m sure, but it’s hard to remember because I was so internally elated that she had just given me two bags of clothing. This was like gold in my hands, I was sure of it. The most popular girl had given me clothing! What luck to be the same size!
I could hardly unbuckle my seatbelt fast enough when we pulled into the driveway of our two-story duplex. I bolted up the stairs and slammed the door behind me in my haste to plunder my new treasure.
As I pulled out the first polo, I immediately noticed the stain across the front. It looked like a three-year-old had lost a fight with a plate of spaghetti. “Hmm,” I thought to myself. “Surely an anomaly.”
But no. Much to my dismay, I quickly realized there was not a single article of clothing that didn’t look as though it was used as a bib for a child tasting their first bites of solid food. How did a girl two years my senior have the spill capacity of a toddler? Every shirt, every pair of shorts was stained well beyond the miracle-working power of OxiClean.
I sat in the middle of the floor and felt an emotion that I couldn’t name at the time.
I certainly did not feel gratitude for being given a sack full of clothing unfit for the local thrift store.
I was not exactly mad either. Disappointed, sure. I had been excited at the prospect of wearing a name brand to school that week. But not mad.
The overwhelming emotion that took over me in that moment I wouldn’t actually name until many years later, yet it was quickly becoming the undertow of my life, pulling me from the surface, threatening to drown me each time any level of self-confidence bubbled up. It was shame.
I was ashamed that I was considered so worthless to this family, to this girl, that they had given me two bags full of clothing that were not worthy of the goodwill dumpster. I was ashamed that this is how this family viewed me and I began to assume that this is how others viewed me, too. Perhaps everyone viewed me this way. The poor girl from the single parent home. Surely she would accept these items. She’ll be grateful for anything.
I snapped back to the present, more than 15 years since that childhood incident, as I gathered up the articles of clothing that were of no use now. No way would I be found guilty of making one of the kids on this street who visited my home each afternoon feel the way that I felt that day. No, I would not give my scraps.
So I packed them tightly in several black bags and set them aside to carry down the road to the trash drop off.
Later that afternoon, I grabbed them up as I walked to down the dirt road, past my good friend Rosa’s house.
“Leave those there, Cristina,” she called to me as I started to pass her house on the way to the trash collection pile. “My boys will take it later.” (My Amazon family calls me ‘Cristina’ because ‘Ashley’ comes out as ‘Assley’ so we base it off my middle name ‘Kristen’ instead.)
I obliged and left the bags at her house, sitting down with her for a while for our usual afternoon chat before returning home to prep for dinner.
The bags of stained clothing didn’t cross my mind again until the following afternoon. Rosa showed up like most days and we hung out together, chatting some, listening some. Just being.
“Cristina,” she said to me eventually, with a certain inflection in her tone I was growing accustomed to. It meant that she wanted to tell me something important but wasn’t quite sure how to say it.
“The next time you have clothing to get rid of, you can just give it to me.” She said it directly, but without a hint of condescension. Just gentle information for my culturally naive self. “There are some families downriver that could really use it.”
Turns out the street dogs had gotten into the trash before her boys had a chance to take it to the end of the road, leaving the clothing strewn about in their wake. She had collected it all and washed it. It was currently hanging to dry in her back yard. My trash transformed into her good will.
I don’t remember what I said exactly. I know I tried to explain why I had thrown the things away. How I didn’t want to give second-hand clothing as would rather give the best of the best. I know she gently assured me that some stains wouldn’t nullify the very real need of the families she was referring to. I know I eventually went quiet and assured her I would pass it along next time. I know I felt that familiar feeling again: shame. How had my efforts to not be that guy in fact turned me into that guy?
Good intentions.
Good intentions from the mom of the teenage girl who I imagine told her daughter to help out the new kid in the youth group.
Good intentions from the missionary trying not to give sloppy seconds.
Good intentions, poorly executed each time.
What’s the lesson here? I don’t know exactly. I know these were two formative moments in my life, for very different reasons.
Maybe it’s just a reminder that we could all use a little grace in the day to day. We’re humans, just trying to figure it out as we go. We’re bound to make mistakes and a little grace goes a long way.
There’s almost always more to every story.
So, grace for the girl giving the stained clothing.
Grace for the girl throwing away the stained clothing.
And grace to heal the places in our hearts where shame likes to hide.
Grace upon grace upon grace.
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*name changed
**actual trashed clothes not pictured