The Little Coat That Could

My pile is growing for the garage sale. 

On top lies a well kept gray shearling jacket that was my mother's who died twenty years ago. It'll never fit me, as she was quite statuesque. It sat in the back of my closet, making an appearance here and there, when I would put it on, after others would go to sleep, just to feel her close to me. 

Every time I walk past the pile now, a memory of her wearing it, pops to mind. This morning I flashed on her trying not to let me see her cry as we walked through the snow on a bustling Berlin street, after going to see our new apartment my father got for us when they seperated. A small studio, in a goliath and "Stalinesque" kind of building, inhabited by prostitutes, soldiers strung out on smack, or struggling single mothers, trying to raise children, not to become either.

Yesterday, I remembered the time she tripped, as we were watching her then boyfriend Jim, an ex-Vietnam vet, filled with beer, rage and a full blown case of PTSD, practice shooting his M16 in the woods at the edge of a small Colorado town, we found ourselves living in. As I helped her up, I was momentarily blinded by the sunlight which reflected off the ice cycles, that hung precariously from an abandoned bridge we had huddled under, in an attempt to brace ourselves against the frustrated Colorado wind. Weirdly, she had just told me in explicit detail, about the birds and the bees. I remember looking at Jim, then back to her, thinking, "I wonder if it bothers her to look at his arms." Which were littered with gapping scars and still floating pieces of shrapnel, he had earned in war.

My favorite memory of her in the coat though, is watching her drag a Christmas tree through frozen mud filled streets to our apartment, because we couldn't afford a car, and she was always too skittish to learn how to drive. She was smiling, laughing and planning the Christmas dinner, she was going to make, just for the two of us. I skipped behind her, to keep warm, but mostly out of happiness, because the storm that always clouded her clear blue eyes, had departed, if only momentarily... 

It's this coat's fault!

So there it sits, on top of the pile, to big for me ever to dare try to wear.