"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 be came 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 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.
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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