Memories

It’s just a shirt. Faded maroon, a hole in the armpit , frayed collar. Numerous spots and stains from years of use. The only thing that makes it special to anyone else is the logo over the right breast: 1999 National Geography Bee.

I earned this shirt in April of that year. Hustling around the UNLV Student Union, moving chairs, filling water decanters, scoring Bee rounds. It was fun. It was worthwhile. It was exhausting. I was eight weeks pregnant and happy.

Now it lays under a pile of doodles. Scribbles and happy faces, little blob people and Princesses on snippets of paper. The remnants of little girls’ dreams that I so casually tossed in the trash, over my worn shirt that I couldn’t justify hanging in the closet anymore. A memory of things lost under a memory of things found.

All you see is just a shirt: some cotton, a bit of stitching and dye, sweat stains that wouldn’t come out. What you can’t see are the memories it holds. An aura surrounds it, full of hope and promise. A day of innocence and bliss. That day I was pregnant. That day I was going to have a baby. That day I had happy dreams.

As the years have passed, I’ve slowly tossed the tangible remnants of her. Hospital bills, doctor visit slips, the socks I wore. This shirt may be the last tactile reminder of a baby lost before I ever saw her.

And now it is discarded. Like that baby, lost and evicted. Gone, with nothing but memories to make it real. Laying under smiles and giggles.

It doesn’t get easier, it just gets different.