The baggy yellow shirt had long sleeves, four
extra-large pockets trimmed in black thread and snaps up the front. It was
faded from years of wear, but still in decent shape. I found it in 1963
when I was home from college on Christmas break, rummaging through bags of
clothes Mom intended to give away.
"You're not taking that old thing, are you?" Mom
said when she saw me packing the yellow shirt. "I wore that when I was
pregnant with your brother in 1954!"
"It's just the thing to wear over my clothes during
art class, Mom. Thanks!" I slipped it into my suitcase before she could
object.
The yellow shirt became a part of my college
wardrobe. I loved it. After graduation, I wore the shirt the day I moved
into my new apartment and on Saturday mornings when I cleaned.
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, 15 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 in 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 attaches, 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 works "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 zigzagged 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. 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.
