It’s just an ordinary shirt, little blue and white checks, small pearl white buttons. Never worn, the labels dangle information on the front, important how to launder instructions, and an extra button just in case one should fall off.
Presented quite a while ago while fourteen candles lit a landscape of frosting snow that tracked a Happy Birthday message in red letters. Eight for decades, five for years, and one, that special one, that’s just for luck.
He’d always said, as old folks do, don’t buy me anything this year, there’s nothing that I need, but who believed him? He wore, as old folks do, that same drab green jersey, faded stripes, frayed cuffs and collar sporting a ring that won’t wash out. And soft. Worn well and almost daily for the season. Then put away for a thinner, short-sleeved version, also drab, faded denim blue.
Should have listened, but who would ever; after all, something must be given back as gifts. And those jerseys were so very worn, he looked just like a hobo but at least he’d wear a newer, crisper, cleaner shirt to the doctor’s, to the bank, and sometimes if we made him, to the supermarket. Just in case he ran into someone that he knew, that he remembered, but he never did.
The shirts and jackets, pants that were never worn now sit in plastic bags together. The old and slightly faded sit in another bag.
But two, the drab striped green and denim blue; those I need to take with me and hold a long, long time.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Yep. This is a fine essay. It is also immediately familiar and for me recalls many whiskered faces, plastic bags and emptied closets.
My mother found the shirt my dad wore on their wedding day, forty years later, in the bottom drawer of his dresser. A forty year old shirt and it looked so much the shirt of a young man, a scared man, a hopeful man. Lord, the drawers, with the familiar smells–the permanent smell of drawers. I’m envious of that in a way. I don’t yet seem to be substantial enough to have drawers equipped to burn memory.
I think in some ways doing the clothes is the hardest part. Looking at the shoes, putting them into plastic bags, thinking, “I can’t throw away a man’s shoes. He needs them.” It’s strange. Our culture needs a ritual just for this, a public undressing and emptying of the suitcase, of the closets and dressing tables and vanity drawers. I think.
Best to you,
p.s. Thanks for your comment on my hand post. I was actually thinking of my dad and his hands at the time. He had beautiful hands, but I don’t have a picture. Mine are similar, but coarser, shorter, and fatter 🙂 Your story about the neighbor makes me smile. I think you must have quite a sense of humor. Suddenly I’m wanting to read your voice in a series of essays about running into neighbors. Anyway, take care.
That drawer smell! Yes! It was definitely something I noticed but was reluctant to include because while my parents’clothes had retained the woody, sweet scent, my own have not acquired it.
Dare I admit to you also that my hands do indeed look like my father’s–popped up veins and all. That’s why your post intrigued me as much as your writing of it.