The decrepit shirt sits on the standard college dresser looking like an old rag waiting to be used for cleaning. The holes in it are so old that even they appear to have holes in them. The best hole starts at the shoulder and works its way around until just under the armpit. Some people might take that as a reason to throw it away, but that’s what gives it character. Most shirts have some significance, a concert here, a football game there. Sometimes they appear out of nowhere like little bunnies multiplying at such a pace that they become impossible to distinguish or make room for. Time goes by and one after one they are thrown out or donated to make room for the other forgettable pieces of fabric that fall into the drawers of life, but this one t-shirt has stayed throughout the years. This one shirt is different.
It may be a simple white t with a rainbow and words scribbled on the front, but its fabric has been nurtured throughout the years; each stain a family memory, every hole a moment in time. A young woman enters the Keepers room and looks around. She spots what could be a scrap of cotton. Picking up the apocalyptic fabric, she examines it with disgust because there is no way she could understand the meaning behind the heirloom. “Why don’t you just throw this ratty thing away,” she asks, her mouth pausing over the word ratty as if even that word can’t describe her revulsion. Of course she asks this, why wouldn’t she? The shirt appears to be far past seeing its better days, but beyond the better days are the memories of the years of life left behind. Just like a bottle of wine, the shirt betters with age.
“Picture this,” says the shirt’s owner. “A couple drives through the vacant upstate towns of New York in the beat up old pickup truck. The rusted out ’78 Ford hunkers through the hills and valleys of the land like the little engine that could, it’s engine humming the tune of, ‘I think I can’ in the silent oasis. Blood shaded paint chips off slowly like nail polish from the bumper, a reminder of the passing of time. The ever classic “Baby on Board” sticker made its first appearance on the truck a mere few months ago when the couple’s special strawberry-daiquiri-made surprise came into being (but that’s another story). On the way back from the zoo, with their bundle of joy, they come across the signs for Woodstock. It’s certainly no ‘69, but ‘93 was one hell of a year, too.”
“If it wasn’t for the alcohol induced crazy night over nine months ago, the two may have gone to the concert, but mistakes don’t belong at rock concerts and neither does the couple (a fact that the 23 year-old woman has a hard time facing). Even though the performers are gone, the show still goes on as the small crew picks up the disheveled mess of the grounds and the straggling venders try to get rid of their few remaining items. Which of the two suggested stopping to buy a memento from the show is long forgotten, but what’s important is that they stopped. They get out of the truck, “bundle of joy” and all, and purchase a sole shirt, a soul shirt to be more precise. Getting back into the truck the couple starts the four-hour journey back home with the windows down and the possibilities of the future awaiting them. They place the shirt over the daiquiri surprise like a blanket to shield her from the coldness of the wind and world she does not yet know.”
The owner of the shirt takes it away from her friend and rubs the soft material between her hands. Her eyes gloss over as if recalling something from the distant past, and after a long, silent pause she continues her tale. “Year after year,” says the owner of the shirt, “the woman wears the shirt to sleep in or when she cleans the house. The bundle of joy grows over time until she is no longer a little bundle; all the time she still idolizes the woman wearing the Woodstock memento. She doesn’t need to tell the woman this though. The woman already knows. Over time bleach stains fade parts of the rainbow away and holes form from the constant wash and wear, but to the no-longer-little bundle of joy, the shirt and its wearer never looked better. Sometimes when the daiquiri mistake is sick the woman lets her stay home and wear the shirt to comfort her. They lay in bed together watching soap operas and the woman rubs the bundles back until she’s lulled to sleep.”
“Later on, when the bundle of joy gets older,” continues the shirt’s current keeper, “the lines between the woman and the shirt become blurred to the former little bundle. One day, when she’s older she tells the woman that she can’t tell the difference between the two anymore. She tells her how she sometimes wonders whether the shirt smells like the woman or if the woman just smells like a shirt. They both laugh about it, but neither can figure out which seems right. They even debate it for a while, but the discussion becomes nonsense; kind of like the chicken or the egg debate.”
The keeper of the shirt chuckles at the confused look on her friend’s face, but continues telling the story because the story is just getting interesting. “It has been nearly two decades,” says the shirt keeper, “since the strawberry daiquiri surprise entered the world. The t-shirt still stands, weathered, but somehow better than when it was first purchased. Whether the love of the woman washed off onto the shirt as time went by, or the thousands of journeys through the washing machine broke down the sentimental fibers will never be known, but the satin-like cotton gets softer with time. Some have stuffed animals or special blankets, but nothing could ever replace the soothing cotton love of the shirt for the child.”
“At 19 the ‘baby on board’ still takes the shirt out at times of sadness. The woman gave it to her as a parting gift to comfort her in the isolated moments of a monotonous life over 600 miles from home. The shirt normally stays in the special space in the back of the drawer, where the other shirts can’t contaminate it; but no matter the location, the lingering hints of home and comfort always remain. While new rips and stains and tares and tears are added to the patchwork quilt of a shirt, the shirt remains like the unsinkable ship. It stays constant unlike anything else in life for the girl. In the hectic world the woven fibers are a beacon of hope for the future, a symbol of the place she came from, and a reminder of the strongest, most frustrating, and most loving person she has ever known.”
At this the shirt keeper stops talking, her voice catching on the lump in her throat about to bring her to not just tears, but body shattering sobs. What the woman didn’t know at the time she passed the shirt on to the girl, and what the girl can’t face herself to speak of now, is that along with bringing her joy, the shirt was a reminder that just like a match can be lit with the flick of the wrist, it can be put out just as quickly. Unlike the other unfounded ideas that are always flowing through the now-adult-bundle’s mind, like her fear of choking when she’s home alone, or her fear that she’ll have an embolism some day in the near future, this fear is inevitable.
One day the Earth as she knows it will stop turning and the smell of the woman within the shirt will be the only thing left of the once 23-year-old beauty. Ultimately even that too will fade away into the great abyss of the world. Tears sting her eyes as she thinks of a world existing without the only person she could never live without; the woman that brought her life, the woman that inspired her, the woman that made her the Keeper of the Shirt.
Once the woman asked the daiquiri surprise what she most feared and, although they always spoke the truth to each other, the girl could not bear it to admit what she really thought. If she told her, the woman would tell her not to worry, but the thought would end up being put into her head. The girl could deal with the burden of this knowledge, but not with the fact that she had forced this burden onto someone else. So instead of telling her the truth, the girl lies to the woman for the first time.
She tells the woman that Death, and the journey towards the unknown are what haunt her dreams at night, but this is a lie. Deep down she’s sure the woman knows this as well, but is just too kind to state it. Although the girl’s thoughts of her own abduction into the unknown or possible disappearance into nothingness scare her, it’s the life without the t-shirt and woman who first kept it that scares her the most. It’s the life without her beacon of hope and her reminder of who she came from that haunts her when the lights go out and her head rests on her pillow.
Bittersweet Symphony 