April 15, 2012

My Mum is going to get some quilts made from my Dad's shirts and today I got them ready by cutting off the collar's, button's and cuff's.  I didn't realize it was going to be as hard as it was.  And I understood even more why it was a job that Mum shouldn't do.  As I cut each shirt, I remembered the places we had been and things we did.  The ones he wore when he came to visit and went for bike rides and took Maverick for walks.  The shirts he wore while I sat beside him in the chemo lab and what he wore while he was sitting in the waiting room at the cancer clinic, seeing his face light up when I walked in the room.  The shirt he wore that dark day in October when we were told there were "no more tools left in the tool box" and I had cried into that shirt as he stroked my hair thanking me for being so strong through all it all.  I had to leave the shirt that I had got him for christmas the year before until the end.  I really liked that one and thought about giving it to Mike, but then realized that I couldn't see him wearing my Dad's clothes either.  It needed to be in the quilt.