So Much More Than Clothes
I held the outfit in my arms: an Air Force blue Bonsie with simplistic white waves, little footies and newborn sleeves that fold over as mittens, the crisscross shirt panels designed for easy skin-to-skin contact. It brings me back to Kai’s first weeks.
I picture him laying down for a diaper change at the foot of the bed, his long torso, the soft roundness of his belly, the faint outline of blue-green veins near his sternum, and the stump of his crusty brown umbilical cord. I see him there, as if it was yesterday, as I hold this tiny piece of clothing close to my chest, run my fingers across the fabric one last time, and drape the garment ever so gently over a heaping pile of clothing donations.
This weekend I sorted through a multi-family lot of baby clothes with my sister-in-law.
Some of the clothes were used, passed down from my nephews, from our doula, and from a friend in Seattle. Some of them were given to us by a family we got to know during our nightly walks when I was pregnant with Loren. To everyone who so generously gave us your children’s clothing. THANK YOU. I see now that your donation was so much more than a bag of hand-me-downs.
Some of the clothes were gifts: the Camp Local Airstream onesie that Airstream gave us when we were Ambassadors living fulltime in our Globetrotter; the multicolored fair trade mix-and-match socks from Nichea; the organic camping onesies from Taylor; dozens of handmade burp cloths from Loren’s Grandma.
I held a pair of 6-12 month yellow footie pajamas in my hands. I called to Jim from across the room, “Do you remember these? These were the pajamas Loren wore the first time he said ‘yellow’ on top of his changing table after his bath. We’d asked him what color his pajamas were, and he caught us off guard and surprised us when he said ‘yellow’ for the first time.” He was so proud of himself. We couldn’t believe it! He kept saying it, over and over, like it was fun to hear the word coming out of his mouth.
Sorting through the clothes evoked a range of emotions. I wasn’t entirely “ready” to give them away, and at the same time, it would do me no good to hang onto them. Still, some items pulled at me more than others: the Hanna Anderson watermelon tank top romper that Kai wore on his first fourth of July; the dozens of sleep sacks my babies wore as I rocked them by day and by night; the Christian Robinson sweatpants we’d stumbled upon at Target after falling in love with his picture books and reading them to our boys.
At the end of it all, I kept two items: Kai’s come home outfit and Loren’s first Christmas sweater. I’ll tuck these items away in their baby boxes. Maybe in twenty or thirty years they boys will pull them out and give them a second life.
God willing, there will come a day when I look back on this exact moment and I’ll hold the next round of clothes they’ve outgrown in my hands, and those memories will come flooding back too, just like they did this weekend. I’ll hold the clothing close, think of each memory fondly, and pass them onto the next round of mothers who will make their own memories.