Sunday Stills...Patriotism and 4th of July

This is the story of a little blue shirt that has insinuated itself into the tapestry of my love for America and the people who make our country great.

It all started on September 12, 2001. Our family was already in turmoil when 9/11 took place. My beloved mother-in-law had passed away on July 4th, incidentally my birthday. She had lived at the farm, while we lived in town and commuted to run the place with her. I cannot convey to you how close we all were. The kids loved their grandma, the boss loved his ma, and she and I had worked through some rocky years to be truly close. When she needed to communicate with her hospice workers she called on me to be her interpreter. That meant a lot to me. We were all hurting.

Now we were moving, from our home of 15 years to live at the farm ourselves. Not going to lie and say that I liked living in town, but still...there were gardens that we built and planted, years of memories and years of junk, all needing to be sorted and dealt with. I was doing it pretty much alone, because the boss was farming and the kids were in school.

Then the planes hit the Trade Center. Normally I would have been milking cows, but I was home packing with the radio on. When I heard the news I turned on the television and watched the horror, then ran to the farm to tell the boss and to the school to grab the kids...that is just how we are...together in crisis.

The next day the whole world was different and yet life had to go on. Our house in town belonged to someone else and we simply HAD to move. So I went on packing. On my knees on the floor in Alan's bedroom I reached under the bed to the nightmare/tangle/boy's nest underneath and pulled out a little blue shirt.

I spread it open in my lap to see if it was a keeper or a tosser.

And there was the NY skyline complete with the Twin Towers. I remembered...class trip with Becky, buying the souvenir from a street vendor for the little boy left at home.

It rocked me. I kept it.

Then, what with the move and all, it vanished not to be seen again for nearly ten years. Sometimes I vaguely wondered where it had ended up, but this house is staggeringly huge...26 foot long rooms, three stories and a cellar, a footprint that would scare you. I didn't forget it, but I didn't come across it either.

Fast forward through those nearly ten years. I love the Sunday Stills challenge and try to participate every week. As I hung up laundry last Wednesday I thought about the little shirt. And thought that if I actually knew where it was I would use it for this challenge. Didn't say a word about it to anyone though. Figured I would grab pics of the fireworks at one or the other of the two racetracks on either side of us, even though I am terrible at nighttime photography.

Thursday Beck and I undertook to finally clean out the front hall. Two stories high and the size of a normal living room. It is an incredibly beautiful space, but a catchall for any junk anyone is too lazy to cart upstairs.

We were about half-way done when Beck held something up. "Look what I found, Mom."

Yes, of course, it was the little blue shirt. Mind you, she didn't know about that moment ten years earlier when I pulled that shirt from under the bed The kids were busy with their own adjustments to a changed world and a new home then so it didn't show up on her horizon much...and I hadn't mentioned to anyone about wondering where it was.....

I suppose you could call it all coincidence...but to me that is one spooky little shirt. I am going to launder it now and put it in my dresser drawer with other mementos of old friends and baby dresses (yes there was a time when my daughters wore dresses) and things of that ilk. And I am glad the lost is found.