The Yellow Shirt

The Yellow shirt

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 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 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.

We received this by email from a cyber-friend and pass it on to you. Feel free to do likewise... ENJOY!