The Child That I Am

My mother tried to give me my grandpa’s old shirts.

I refused to take them, but it didn’t matter.

The next day I came home and found them on my bed,

Seven white undershirts washed, dried, and stuffed in a plastic bag,

Downy-scented, sized large.

 

I didn’t want to look at them.

I put the bag underneath my bed

And forgot about them,

Slept on top of them.

 

Grandpa was a good man, as far as I know.

He:

Never smoked,

Never drank,

Hardly raised his voice,

And didn’t curse, except when

 

He was on his deathbed in that hospice center outside Florence, SC,

Where he told me to get the hell away from him as I peered into his eyes and saw death peer back.

 

A year had passed since my mother left me those shirts.

Time had come for me to move out of my parent’s house for the second time that year.

Unlike this summer,

When I slept in a hallway,

Where I only needed a mattress and a suitcase full of clothes,

This move was supposed to be permanent.

 

So, I made sure this time to take everything I owned,

Except those white undershirts,

Which I threw into the closet of the room next door.

 

Now, almost a month after settling in into my new place,

I found those white undershirts again.

They were mixed up in the laundry that I had taken home to be washed,

Neatly folded among all my most favorite shirts.