The yellow shirt ....continued ( Archived) (7)

The next year, I married. When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow shirt during big-belly days. I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since we were in Colorado and they were in Illinois . But, that shirt helped. I smiled, remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant, 25 years earlier.



That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had given me, I patched one elbow, wrapped it in holiday paper and sent it to Mom. When Mom wrote to thank me for her 'real' gifts, she said the yellow shirt was lovely. She never mentioned it again..





The next year, my husband, daughter and I stopped at Mom and Dad's to pick up some furniture. Days later, when we uncrated the kitchen table, I noticed something yellow taped to its bottom.. The shirt!



And so the pattern was set.



On our next visit home, I secretly placed the shirt under Mom and Dad's mattress. I don't know how long it took for her to find it, but almost two years passed before I discovered it under the base of our living-room floor lamp. The yellow shirt was just what I needed now while refinishing furniture.. The walnut stains added character.



In 1975 my husband and I divorced. With my three children, I prepared to move back to Illinois . As I packed, a deep depression overtook me. I wondered if I could make it on my own. I wondered if I would find a job. I paged through the Bible, looking for comfort. In Ephesians, I read, 'So use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all over, you will be standing up.'



I tried to picture myself wearing God's armor, but all I saw was the stained yellow shirt.. Slowly, it dawned on me. Wasn't my mother's love a piece of God's armor? My courage was renewed.







Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt back to Mother. The next time I visited her, I tucked it in her bottom dresser drawer.

Meanwhile, I found a good job at a radio station. A year later I discovered the yellow shirt hidden in a rag bag in my cleaning closet.



Something new had been added. Embroidered in bright green across the breast pocket were the words 'I BELONG TO PAT.'





Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and added an apostrophe and seven more letters.

Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, 'I BELONG TO PAT'S MOTHER.' But I didn't stop there.. I zig-zagged all the frayed seams, then had a friend mail the shirt in a fancy box to Mom from Arlington , VA. We enclosed an official looking letter from 'The Institute for the Destitute,' announcing that she was the recipient of an award for good deeds.

I would have given anything to see Mom's face when she opened the box. But, of course, she never mentioned it.






I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave. But I'm glad I didn't, because it is a vivid reminder of the love-filled game she and I played for 16 years. Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in art.. And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets

again I screwed up....this also was supposed to be included in the story before the last paragraph.

Two years later, in 1978, I remarried. The day of our wedding, Harold and I put our car in a friend's garage to avoid practical jokers. After the wedding, while my husband drove us to our honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my head. It felt lumpy. I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding paper, the yellow shirt. Inside a pocket was a note: 'Read John 14:27-29. I love you both, Mother.'



That night I paged through the Bible in a hotel room and found the verses: 'I am leaving you with a gift: peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn't fragile like the peace the world gives.. So don't be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you will believe in me.'



The shirt was Mother's final gift. She had known for three months that she had terminal Lou Gehrig's disease. Mother died the following year at age 57.



I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave. But I'm glad I didn't, because it is a vivid reminder of the love-filled game she and I played for 16 years. Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in art.. And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets.


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Great story LF
My mom also died young at 57.We passed gag gifts back and forth at Xmas.
And some that were not jokes at all.I hace a 40 year old volumn of Housman which has traveled near and far and now suffers from dry-rot and the ravages of paper mites....
She asked if I thought I would find a use for her prosthetic breast....
All we could come up with was a paper-weight or a door-stop....
I'm glad you're sharing fond memories here.We see way too much pathological grief on the site.I know it cant be helped but it's good to see loss dealt with affirmatively.
It takes character to laugh in the face of death between tears.You have it.
Bravo.
John

Thank you, but this story was passed on to me, not personal. I just thought it was a pretty neat thing to do so passed it on.

Thank you for sharing this beautiful story with us

Boban needs a shirt.Wonder if he'd accept a worn-out yellow one? I would.