~it is just an old sweatshirt~

It's just an old sweatshirt, emblazoned with the name of my high school back home in south central Kansas.  The year that I graduated is plastered smack dab in the middle.  It's just an old and somewhat worn out hoodie but if I had to choose an article of clothing that I consider my favorite, then it would have to be this one.

I got it for Christmas way back in 2010.  It was one of those things that I purchased for myself that year and when it came in the mail, I swore that I would hardly ever wear it.  I would keep it nice and pristine in condition for ever and ever.

Amen.

Somehow or another, just hanging it up in the closet and wearing it only once in a while didn't really seem fitting.  So I wore it and it wasn't just once in a while on every other Sunday in the odd numbered months.  I wore it all the time and as my pictures reflected it, you would have thought it was the only article of clothing that I ever wore.

I wore it back in October of 2011 when the good doctor told me how "old lefty" was doing after the second of four surgeries.  

I wore it back in the mountains of Colorado, especially on cold winter evenings.  It helped me to not miss home so much.

I wore it back in Haven too when Mike and I met up with our dear friends on the Grier Pharmacy corner on Fall Festival Day of 2013.

I can't even tell you how many blog posts have been written wearing that old sweatshirt.  I guess if an article of clothing could be inspiring, then this one was it.

Since both Mike and I are Haven alumni, he now has his own sweatshirt too.  I love this photo because it reminds me of how strange it was for the two of us to meet up with one another after the passage of 40 years of time.  Thanks to the wonderful little community of Haven!

It was always great for a bike ride or two.  I always figured that bright gold color would stand out on the roadways.  It was a "just right" material.  Not too hot and not too cool either.

I planted lots of flowers with it on.

And I stood next to a guy from the "land of long ago and far, far away".

We even made our very first snowman together back in 2014 and since he looked a little on the chilly side, just for a time I decided it was ok to let that sweatshirt go to another purpose.  Just for a time.

I wore it after my final swimming lesson of 2011 at the local YMCA back home in Hutchinson.

And I even wore it sitting next to the sweetest aunt you would ever want to know.

It made the trip all the way to Maine with me when I saw my very first lighthouse in 2012.

Hey I even had it on when we met this young man walking all the way across America.

That 5 year-old sweatshirt warmed my body on the day we moved away from our mountain home down onto the plains of Texas.

It brings me a whole lot of comfort to see it, to feel it, and to wear it.  

It is just an old sweatshirt, now getting a bit tattered and worn.  By some folks' standards, it's probably ready for the replacement pile.  Yet for me, there's NO WAY that I will ever get rid of it.  

It's not being held together by the threads any longer.  Something much stronger keeps it in piece.

Memories.

At the monument to my great-great grandmother Rebecca Burch in the little Quaker cemetery just north of Halstead, Kansas.  Some day when I am gone from this earth my remains will be laid next to her.