december 26, 2017

“My to-do list for today: Count my blessings. Practice kindness. Let go of what I can’t control.
Listen to my heart. Be productive yet calm. Just breathe.” ~ Tiny Buddha

Back in late October, when mom was just able to get around without a walker, I took her to the outlet mall near Shelbyville where she discovered Chico’s. We had a delightful time as we bought many Christmas presents. I bought this sweater. I loved it immediately, and I wore it to work right away. It was soft and warm and contoured to make me look thin. Truly, I adored it. The next time I washed it, I threw it in with something that wasn’t done sloughing off dye so that the white of the sweater was dulled. It wasn’t ruined, it just needed a good soaking in Woolite to brighten it up again, but I was headed to California so it would have to wait until I got back. Mom was sad for me. While I was gone, she tried something she’d been led to believe would brighten the white without destroying the black. It brightened the white, that part was true, but it turned the black to sepia; blotched sepia at that. She was bereft, virtually inconsolable by the time I got home. By then she had searched two states trying to find another one. It was not to be. I put a call out to the facebook hive mind of shoppers. It became clear that the sweater was so beloved that no more existed, new or used. I resigned myself to the worn-one-time memory, and to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Then came Christmas. The first box I came to held a brand new still-with-the-tag replacement sweater. Mom had somehow managed to find the right Chico’s employee who would really help her, and help she did. They found a sweater in Arkansas, of all places. Mom won Christmas! Bless her heart, she was tickled to death, and I was tickled for her. We celebrated once more. 

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