The Sweater

The Sweater

March 2017

As I looked through what could only be described as years of useless junk I reminisced about each new item I picked from the cardboard boxes. My first little league home run baseball, my grades from my eighth grade year, drawings I made in kindergarten, and then I found my favorite sweater. I shook off the years of dust and grime, coughed and thought back on the moment that I got this sweater. This worn out sweater.

Christmas morning rolled around and it was a particularly rough year, my father had passed and my mother was left with the weight of the world on her shoulders. For the first time since I could remember I dreaded Christmas, I dreaded the look in my mother’s eyes as she took on one more things alone. I dreaded the need to pretend that we were happy when we so clearly were not. I dreaded the silent breakfast with forced smiles.

I woke with my little sister and begrudgingly made my way downstairs, I still remember the feeling of the cold hardwood floor on me feet as I turned the corner and to my shock my mother had made the normal Christmas breakfast. She had a smile on her face and danced around the Christmas tree hanging the string of popcorn. There where two perfectly wrapped presents under the tree and the fireplace was lit giving the small room the perfect glow. She had her coffee and we had our hot cocoa as we sat down and ate. We laughed and remembered all the good times our family had had. We didn’t think about the problems the next day would bring or the bills sitting just one room over.

For a brief moment we had peace, a real peace then after making my sister wait for an hour we opened the presents. I opened mine first and saw the hand knit red sweater, my favorite color. I could not believe that between work and making sure we ate my mother had the time to knit an entire sweater. I loved it but I loved the look of excitement on her face even more, she didn’t regret a single moment she had worked. The smile reached her eyes and I remember thinking that I hadn’t seen her truly smile like that in a long time.

To this day it was still the most amazing gift I had ever received. I wore that red sweater until holes started to pop up ever wear and my mother finally gave up sowing it back together. I laughed at the memory of me at fifteen begging my mother to sow the five-year-old sweater back together once again. She finally said that it was time the sweater had its last day. I was devastated but I understood, there was a stain that covered the whole left sleeve and holes along the neckline and base of the sweater. I still loved it but I hadn’t worn it since that day, yet I couldn’t stand the idea of loosing it, so in the attic it went.

I starred at the old sweater that was exactly how I had remembered it, it even smelled the same and thought why not? As I lifted it over my head. I got one sleeve and half of my head in before I realized I was completely stuck. Ten years later and the sweater no longer fit, I should have known. I may have felt like it but I was no longer the little boy who once loved this sweater.

I was stuck, however that wasn’t the problem, no. The problem was that for the first time she wasn’t here to help me out of it.