Pancreas ex vivo part two: check out this dress

Everyone, you can relax. I know what to wear to really show off my insulin pump.

I found it at a thrift shop right there on the rack with a bunch of regular dresses. It was so beautiful. I couldn’t not buy it. Actually, I didn’t buy it, my mom bought it for me. She’s great. She gets it. I think she might have been thinking about the times I used to get upset in August or so if I didn’t have a plan for what to wear for Halloween. I think she might have been thinking, ok, if she has a plan for what to wear in the afterlife, maybe she’ll calm down.

Like I said, I’m planning to wear it in the current life but it would obviously work in the afterlife as well. Or at a semiformal party with a “saint” or “ghost” theme. So I’m set. I think what would really bring it all together, in any of those settings, is to decorate my pancreas ex vivo as follows.

It’s Saint Benedict. I went looking for a patron saint of diabetes and there isn’t one. Benedict would be a good nominee. He’s already the patron saint of inflammatory diseases and poison. His novena says he taught religious perfection through “self-conquest, mortification, humility, obedience, prayer, silence, retirement and detachment from the world,” and that’s the most romantic way I can think of to look at the daily diabetes checklist. Not romantic-romantic, but it puts a nice intentional spin on things.

So now that’s figured out. I also have these.

I found them the same day at a different thrift shop. Right after I bought them, my mom and I went to get my grandmother from her hair appointment. She’s 91 and her hair is bright white. I carried the shoes inside the beauty shop and showed them around. It didn’t really get the reaction I expected. I expected everyone to be amazed at my taste and say a thing or two about the woman I’d become. My grandmother used to work at a bank. She wore suits, clear hose, triple strands of crystals, the whole deal. Very fancy. Everybody just looked at the shoes, and then my grandmother, who is somewhat hard of hearing, pointed to me and said, “she’s a singer.”

That was sweet. I hadn’t realized she remembered about the band.

But seriously, those shoes would go with anything. I should have shown them the whole ensemble.

I don’t know my grandmother’s shoe size or what kind of timing she has in mind, or whether she has an outfit already planned, but if she’d want to borrow this I would definitely loan it to her. Her hair would look great with it and so would her crystals and whatever else she would bring to the mix. I would keep Saint Benedict for myself, you know, for the future, so that when the time comes I can make the outfit really mine.

For more on the diabetes and martyrdom, check out The Pod and God by Ann and diabetes writer/blogger/big thinker Amy Stockwell Mercer. For your own attire for the afterlife, you can try Frugal’s Vintage Boutique & Salon but I really think I bought the one and only.