My Mother's coat

It was 34 degrees, sunny and muggy when we left Darwin. I was glad to finish our time away and say goodbye to the sticky heat. But I had not expected to be greeted by rain and 10 degrees on our arrival back in Adelaide.

When we left Barmera a week earlier it was a welcome spring day with sunshine and low twenties temperature, so the clothes I wore then were waiting for me in our unit and we needed to stay overnight before travelling home.
What do do? The obvious answer would be to head tot he shops and buy something new. But I have heaps of suitable things - just not where I was. But there are many garments hanging in the wardrobe. Some are archival and include the dress I wore for my 21st, a coat I had in my youth and a denim jacket my daughter loved as a teenager. All have a story to tell - not least of all of my nostalgia and reluctance to part  with them.
When my Mother died two years ago it fell to me to clear out her room at the aged care facility and so I removed her clothes. Although there had been a cull previously there were still plenty. Some I dispatched to the op shops and others I couldn't quite part with and so I hung them in my wardrobe. There must be something warm there; my mother had great taste. The only problem was that she had been a red head and her colouring and mind only overlap to some degree. There  were about six jackets to choose from - in shades of beige and fawn and brown and green. But then I found the bluish sage one, a long-line lined raincoat sort of thing and it didn't look too bad. And it was warm against the chill wind and rain of that day and the next.

We had arrived home and the next day I needed to head out. Although I had all my usual clothes to choose from I reached for my Mum's coat. How lovely to be wrapped in a sense of her continuing presence. There were two clean tissues in the pocket and I imagined her touch upon them. So snug and warm and loved.
My Dad died 34 years before Mum did and yet all those years she kept one of his jumpers - a lovely soft green one that reminded her of him and kept his presence real. When the funeral people asked me to bring in clothes for her body to be dressed in I took a favourite dress and on impulse Dad's jumper. when I went for the viewing (compulsory by law and the only viewing as Mum didn't want her coffin to be public) there was her body lying with arms folded across the jumper my Dad had worn all those years before. No wonder I  felt comforted by my mother's coat.