A mama story. This shirt always reminds me of my mother. It isn’t because she was a tie-dyed crunchy granola tree hugging hippie like her daughter. When she was in the hospital back in 2010, I was visiting her in South Florida where she and my dad had lived since 1989, having retired and moved to their idea of paradise. He had passed in 2008 of Parkinson’s and she was dealing with kidney disease and CHF. This was early on in her treatment and during a period of multiple hospitalizations. I lived more than a thousand miles away,  in a town North of Philadelphia. My visits were periodic at first and then more regular as her condition deteriorated. Toward the end of her life, I winged my way Southward seven times to sit at her bedside both in the hospital and in her living room. On the day after Thanksgiving, she joined my father on the Other Side

Earlier that Spring, I was with her in a Hollywood, Florida hospital room, and she ‘kicked me out’ and told me to go to the beach. I didn’t have a bathing suit or towel with me, so after driving a few miles, I stopped in a store and bought this shirt and a towel to lounge on. As I was there, I overheard a group of 20-something young women talking about their lives. One sighed and said, “I’m in such a happy place in my life right now. I’m almost scared. It’s so perfect.” She was clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop.