I watched that old green coat made of wool get chucked onto the donations pile and I sighed. “Goodbye old coat, I’m sorry Dad.” I thought to myself. It’s not an easy thing to do, getting rid of something like that. Something which has your dad’s essence woven into it. But I had no reason to keep it.
It had lived in a closet for the last forty-three years, at a minimum. I don’t actually have any solid memories of my dad wearing that coat. I have pictures, and those pictures feel real. I have the knowledge that he wore it, probably often when they lived in Germany, and that feels real too. I have a sense of obligation to that coat that I can’t displace easily.
I have no good reason to keep it. It sat in one or another closet in my parents house as I grew up. It moved with them. It sat in a new closet in the house in Winona, for twenty-four years. It sat in a hall closet in the final house in Pilot Point, by which time my parents had forgotten it existed. And then, finally, it has been sitting in my hall closet for five years since he died.
I am not a sentimental old fool. I don’t “hold onto” things. And that sentiment became even stronger in 2007 when I saw my Granny’s beloved stuff get dispersed, and moved, and lost, and then forgotten. It solidified in 2021 when my dad passed, and then my mom went in 2023. Adhering to it the philosophy that you “can’t take it with you when you go.” My parents had a lot of things that they collected over 70-odd years. Things from foreign countries, things that meant something. To them. Not necessarily to me. And it was touching, the things they kept. The old love letters which burned my fingers and my eyes and which I stopped reading and threw mostly out. They weren’t meant for me anyway. The things from their honeymoon in Italy and their stints in Germany. I have a small replica of Michelangelo’s David hidden from view in a box in my closet. Hidden so that young eyes don’t see his nakedness. Something my parents never even considered doing for my own young, curious eyes as he was boldly displayed in a cabinet in our living room since before I was born.
I have my mom’s silver fox fur coat and hat. Yes, they are 100% authentic. I couldn’t tell you how many silver foxes in Europe died to make that coat and hat. But I can tell you I bet my mom’s eyes lit up like Christmas when my proud dad gave them to her. That image is what keeps that coat in my closet. Also, what on earth do you do with a silver fox fur coat in this day and age? I also never saw her wear them. There might be a picture… somewhere. They are certainly fancy. Gorgeous and from a by-gone era. (I mean people might still wear fancy, heavy real fur coats. I don’t travel in those circles, so I don’t know.)
I have a bunch of smaller mementos. Things I have in a special glass fronted cabinet in my bedroom. Like their wedding rings and a frog ashtray. My dad’s special, lucky, silver dollar. Things you would want to pass down. I have a few pieces in my kitchen, and some of the yellow rose painted dishware. I have the small tea-cup sized one that my mom broke in her memory-care facility and wasn’t overly concerned about. She had forgotten the significance. She had forgotten they were her mother’s. I cried when I found it, glued it back together, and it sits on a bookshelf in my office. So that I never forget the importance of remembering.
I had a whole house to go through after they died, and I kept very little of what was there. If I had kept that old, heavy, woolen coat it would have sat in my closet here or there for another twenty or thirty years until Baby Girl has to clean out my effects. And wonders where it came from. I would prefer to spare her that if possible. I am a big fan of cleaning out, purging, re-organizing and refreshing. I do have a lot of things, as most of us do after fifty-plus years of living. Most of it is expendable.
And here’s the thing. What if someone else could benefit from that coat? Why should I keep a thing that someone could use? Isn’t it better off being used? I feel that way about books, too. I keep my favorites so that I can read them again, but there are few I will keep just for the sake of “hanging on to.” Books need to be read. Coats need to be worn. Love letters need to stay between the hearts of those that wrote them.
My office has the most memorabilia. I think that I had recreating my mom’s own office in mind when I decorated it. Or maybe that’s just where I feel her the most. Either way, this space is sacred. This space is where I can imagine that she’s just down the road, in her own space, reading or working just like I am. And Tony’s garage is the place where I most feel my dad, though he would be appalled at the mess in there. The tools and the sawdust, the bits and pieces of things that were his, the atmosphere. Tony once asked me if the sound of the air compressor running bothered me. No, I said. It takes me back. It feels like home.
There are things Tony needs to let go of, too. His dad left him tools and shit. My dad left him tools and shit. My husband does not feel the same sense of “letting go of shit” that I do. He is a hoarder. This could be useful, he says. When? I ask.
I finally got him to let his dad’s old flannel shirt that will never fit him go in the donations pile. It went with my dad’s coat.
What’s the point of holding onto something that could have a better life elsewhere? That could have a life, belong to a person, be appreciated for its use rather than its sentimental value. I have to believe that someone out there will eventually find that coat on a thrift store rack and say, “this was meant to be mine.”
Godspeed old coat. Good luck.
Found a picture last night after writing this with my dad in the green coat and my mom in the silver fox. I was about five years old, my brother nine.
