Meggie O’Rourke, with her family, owns a lingerie company called Lace, Satin, and Baubles. This is her grandma’s speech at the fashion show they have just put on. Grandma Regan is in her eighties. She immigrated from Ireland as a girl after a disaster and grew up in poverty. Grandma has just revealed part of that past.

“Lace, Satin, and Baubles is not only about lingerie and negligees. It’s about women. It’s about how we want to live our lives. It’s about what we think about ourselves and how we think. It’s about valuing ourselves enough to wear something stunning, something lacy, not to show it to someone else but because we know that we deserve it.

We know that we can get out into a world that is sometimes cold, and sometimes dangerous, and be someone in it. We can become who we dreamed of becoming, we can leave a bad past behind, and we can look beautiful doing it.

“I am not defined by my body or what has happened to it. I am not defined by beatings or an arching whip or a dangerous man, or by the wreckage of prostitution. I am not defined by my age.

I am not defined by what others think of me. I am defined by myself. I will define myself to me. I will live, I will laugh, I will love.

I will not be silenced. I will not be invisible. I will be me until the very end. And I will look beautiful.

“I dared. I dared to found a company that would leave a legacy. I dared to live the way I damn well wanted to live. I dare you to live the life you want to live and to leave your nightmares behind you.

I dare you to dance, I dare you to sparkle, I dare you to wear gold tassels. I dare you,” she shouted, “I dare you” – she pointed to the audience – “to be you.”

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