The Sweater

On a random Saturday morning during a project of sorting dresser drawers full of tiny toddler laundry...there it was. 

Hanging in the closet.    All by itself.    I quit breathing.

Mom was always cold. Always. Her sweaters, particularly this one went everywhere she did. 

Especially to every freezing hospital and doctor appointment.

When she died I cleaned her apartment. 

Just me and her things. I barely made it through, but I did it.

I boxed up her kitchen. Her bedding. Her pajamas.

 I donated some things.   A lot of things I kept. 
I had to. 

Those things are exactly where I put them when I came home from her apartment in May of 2017. 

I cant look through it yet and no one has requested it to be moved because they know it requires my emotional availability.
I am thankful for that.
Most days even a year later its not there.

I can talk of her and look at her pictures many times, without tears.

But this.... this sweater.

 This "let me grab my sweater" sweater, hit me like a tidal wave. 

Or train. Or a tidal wave of trains.

I never washed it. For a year it hung here. Forgotten.

It didn't just smell “like” her as do the rest of her things.

Her perfume, lotions, or laundry soap. Her apartment, car, or outside. 

Not even the empty closet.

It smelled of her. Of the skin on her slender neck where I'd tuck my chin. 

Her hair. Not shampoo but her fine salt and pepper hair.
It smelled of my mother, skin and bone, her. 

  The sleeve ends held her troubled tears and the shoulders held mine. 

I wrapped its empty arms around my shoulders and hugged it.

I cried, and I cried for my Mama until my lungs hurt.

I will never forget the day I stood in that tiny closet hugging her empty sweater. 

I stood in that tiny closet with my Mother.