An ‘angel flying too close to the ground’ gets to soar

Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

Sometimes, when I am trying to cross the street in front of my house, I count the cars that whiz past. Forty-eight is my all-time high. Mostly it’s about 30 before someone lets me cross. I live on what used to be a country road but is now a busy cut-through. By the time I get from my front yard to the sidewalk across the street, I’m generally sour on the human race.

That’s one reality.

Here is another:

In late September, I asked a man I barely knew if he would help me make a mermaid costume for my granddaughter, Lucy. Lucy is not your typical kid. She is, in the words of an old Willy Nelson song, an “angel flying too close to the ground.” She’s 16 and has Down syndrome. This man, David Josef, more stranger than friend, didn’t even hesitate. He said, “I’ll make her costume! Send me a picture.”

I knew at the time that Josef designed dresses. But I didn’t know that he designed dresses for Broadway and Hollywood stars. I didn’t know that he was up to his ears in commitments, in charity events, in creating wardrobes for celebrities. What I knew was that I was in a room with a man who could maybe tell me where I could get a mermaid pattern. Because the mermaid that Lucy wanted to be was not Ariel from “The Little Mermaid” (which I could have bought at the Disney Store), but Cher dressed up as a mermaid for her 1990 film, “Mermaids.”

Driving home that night, after our conversation, I convinced myself that I had misinterpreted David Josef’s words. That what he had meant to say was that he’d be happy to help me make the costume. That he would be my guide. That he would tell me where to find what I needed. And that was fine. If he could direct me? If he could show me how to thread a bobbin?

But on Facebook the next morning was a message from him with his cell number and a single question: “When do you need the costume?”

I took Lucy to his Waltham shop for a fitting. It’s a period piece place of satins and sequins, sewing machines and boxes full of buttons and drawers full of lace and threads in all colors and dresses, so many dresses. For brides. For bridesmaids. For special days. For every day.

And in the midst of this wonderland stood Lucy dreaming her dream. She wanted to be Cher.

The costume is made in parts. We spread them out at Lucy’s house on her dining room table. A satiny deep blue fish tail. A white shirt studded with sea shells. A beaded shrug sweater. A long, blond, curly wig that we bought at Dorothy’s Boutique in Boston. And a headpiece made of pearls and shells and sea glass and blue, wispy flowers, which, all by itself is a work of art. David’s husband, Danny Forrester, created this.

Lucy wriggled into the fishtail first. Then she put on the shirt. Then the shrug. And then I held my breath because Lucy does not like bows or headbands or anything on her head.

But she stood still as stone as I fit the wig to her. And she continued to stand still as I fussed with the headpiece.

She didn’t run to the mirror to look at herself. She didn’t need to see her reflection to be transformed. She could look down at her fish tail. She could feel the sea shells on her shirts. She could reach up and touch her curly hair and the pearls on her headpiece. The costume was the magic, not the looking glass. Lucy was a mermaid. Lucy was Cher.

Left on my own, I could not have made this happen. Even with help, I could not have made this happen.

David Josef made this happen. It took him time. It took him hours. I stand at the top of my driveway waiting for a car to stop, waiting to cross the street, and I think about this. I think of the seconds people begrudge. I count 18 cars before a red truck slows and stops. Eighteen normally makes me angry. But I don’t feel anger today. I feel the residue of kindness. I feel the potential of love.