Yellow Shirt - Inspirational Mother / Daughter Email

Have you ever had a treasured memory of fun mother / daughter times? The yellow shirt is an inspirational story of one such memory for a Mother and Daughter.  Read about how this yellow shirt came to mean so much more to Pat and her mom as the years go by. This Email about the yellow shirt is very inspirational.

Fun times between a mother and daughter.

Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:34:14 -0500
From: —@—-.com
Subject: FW: Yellow Shirt-Special times with her mom
To: @DontLoseFaith.com

The yellow shirt had long sleeves, four extra-large pockets
trimmed in black thread and snaps up the front. It was faded
from years of wear, but still in decent shape. I found it in 1963
when I was home from college on Christmas break, rummaging
through bags of clothes Mom intended to give away. ‘You’re not
taking that old thing, are you?’, Mom said when she saw me packing
the yellow shirt. ‘I wore that when I was pregnant with your brother
in 1954!’

It’s just the thing to wear over my clothes during art class, Mom. Thanks!’
I slipped it into my suitcase before she could object. The yellow shirt
became a part of my college wardrobe. I loved it. After graduation, I
wore the shirt the day I moved into my new apartment and on Saturday
mornings when I cleaned.

The next year, I married. When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow
shirt during big-belly days. I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since
we were in Colorado and they were in Illinois. But that shirt helped. I smiled,
remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant, 15 years
earlier.

That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had given me, I patched
one elbow, wrapped it in holiday paper and sent it to Mom. When Mom wrote to
thank me for her ‘real’ gifts, she said the yellow shirt was lovely. She never
mentioned it again.

The next year, my husband, daughter and I stopped at Mom and Dad’s to pick
up some furniture. Days later, when we uncrated the kitchen table, I noticed
something yellow taped to its bottom. The shirt!

And so the pattern was set…

On our next visit home, I secretly placed the shirt under Mom and Dad’s mattress.
I don’t know how long it took for her to find it, but almost two years passed before
I discovered it under the base of our living-room floor lamp. The yellow shirt was just
what I needed now while refinishing furniture. The walnut stains added character.

In 1975 my husband and I divorced. With my three children, I prepared to move
back to Illinois. As I packed, a deep depression overtook me. I wondered if I could
make it on my own. I wondered if I would find a job. I paged through the Bible,
looking for comfort. In Ephesians, I read, ‘So use every piece of God’s armor to
resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all over, you will be standing up.’
I tried to picture myself wearing God’s armor, but all I saw was the stained yellow shirt.
Slowly, it dawned on me. Wasn’t my mother’s love a piece of God’s armor? My
courage was renewed.

Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt back to Mother. The next
time I visited her, I tucked it in her bottom dresser drawer.

Meanwhile, I found a good job at a radio station. A year later I discovered the yellow
shirt hidden in a rag bag in my cleaning closet. Something new had been added.
Embroidered in bright green across the breast pocket were the words ‘I BELONG TO PAT.’

Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and added an apostrophe
and seven more letters. Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, ‘I BELONG TO PAT’S
MOTHER.’ But I didn’t stop there. I zig-zagged all the frayed seams, then had a friend
mail the shirt in a fancy box to Mom from Arlington, VA We enclosed an official looking
letter from ‘The Institute for the Destitute,’ announcing that she was the
recipient of an award for good deeds. I would have given anything to see Mom’s face
when she opened the box. But, of course, she never mentioned it.

Two years later, in 1978, I remarried. The day of our wedding, Harold and I put our
car in a friend’s garage to avoid practical jokers. After the wedding, while my
husband drove us to our honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my
head. It felt lumpy. I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding paper, the
yellow shirt. Inside a pocket was a note: ‘Read John 14:27-29. I love you both,
Mother.’

That night I paged through the Bible in a hotel room and found the verses: ‘I am leaving
you with a gift: peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn’t fragile like the
peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you:
I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be
very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have
told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you will believe in
me.’

The shirt was Mother’s final gift. She had known for three months that she had terminal
Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mother died the following year at age 57.

I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave. But I’m glad I didn’t,
because it is a vivid reminder of the love-filled game she and I played for 16 years.
Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in art. And every art student
needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets.

*Note from DontLoseFaith.com: Inspire mothers and daughters across the world!  Forward this inspirational mother / daughter email to your friends and loved ones.
May you be blessed and Remember Always, No Matter What, Don’t Lose Faith and Never Give up!