This shirt

There's a wonderful song by the wonderful Mary Chapin Carpenter called This Shirt. The song chronicles Mary's shirt on its journey from attending "every boring high school dance," through lovers, travels, travels with lovers, the birth and death of kittens, and raking the lawn.

I don't have anything like a "this shirt." I do have a couple of sweaters, still in service, that I've had since the late 1980's. The closest I come to a "this shirt" is a denim shirt from the mid-to-late 1990's that sports the new company logo for the place I worked throughout the 90's. 

Most of my logoware went to late husband, who wore polo shirts, a rain jacket, a fleece from companies I worked for, including my consulting clients. When Jim died, he was wearing a very soft and comfy, navy blue logo shirt from my then client LogMeIn, which supplied me (that is to say, Jim) with several of their soft and comfy polo shirt over the years. 

Jim wasn't exactly a clothes horse, and he also wore things to death. (By this I mean the ragged death of the clothing item, not Jim's death.) But he did have a good suit, a couple of nice sports jackets, a top coat, a parka, Brooks Brothers khakis,  jeans, and a couple of belts that I donated after he died. I think I ragged the polo shirts, which were pretty much worn to death. Some of his long sleeved shirts I gave away (for symbolic reasons) to friends and family who wanted a memento. (These are what in Catholic parlance are second class relics. A first class relic would be a bone fragment or, I guess, Jim's ashes. Which I still have some of.)

For some reason, I hung onto a number of Jim's long sleeved shirts. These came in two categories: LL Bean solid color

This Shirt

cotton or flannel - a new plaid flannel LL Bean shirt was, for years, my mother's Christmas gift to Jim - and Brooks Brothers in some variation of blue (solid, striped, plaid, checked).

The other day, I came across a handful of them, hanging to the side of my closet. They were mostly Brooks Brothers, mostly on hangers from the dry cleaners, still with the little clear plastic gizmo at the neck closure, and the little blue paper tag attached to the lower part of the shirt.

One of the shirts - and LL Bean-er - was pretty worn, so it'll go in the cloth recycle bag. The others are going to St. Francis House, where there will be some guests who will enjoy having a high quality Brooks Brothers shirt, even one that's been hanging in my closet for over 11 years now.

They're going to St. Francis House with the exception of the one I'm wearing as I write this post. It's a blue and white small windowpane Brooks Brothers, and I'm loving having it on. There is no scent of Jim on it. It's been laundered; it's been 11+ years. But still...

This shirt. I'll be hanging on to it for a while.

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Here's link to Mary Chapin Carpenter's This Shirt. Just lovely.