Mom as a T-Shirt

(or, collection of Tees - oh, the things we hold onto)

Back here on the coast, the sifting and sorting continues. Decisions, decisions, decisions. What to keep. What to toss. What’s good enough to donate? Anything valuable enough to sell? Why did I decide that all those… tee shirts… were worth carefully folding away into boxes?

We’ve been emptying out a family shipping container, and after hauling a big stack of boxes into the house, I’m back in the guest room digging through boxes, bins, and bags of stuff, creating piles, and yes - filling new boxes.

To the uninitiated, the two boxes full of large-size T-shirts might have been an automatic ‘toss.’ But a closer look (and some interpretive assistance) reveals that the collection reveals a lot about my mother - who she was, what she loved, where she travelled, and what she felt worthy of collecting.

Let’s take a tour, shall we?

Mom loved music and singing and whenever we arrived in a new town she’d search out the local choir. From Sweet Adelines to musical theatre to Raging Grannies, if there was music involved, my mother was all in. She was a natural tenor (as am I), so she often sang with the men so she didn’t need to strain her voice reaching for the alto parts reserved for the more typical lower ranges of women’s voices.

One of her all-time favourite choirs was Victoria’s Gettin’ Higher Choir, a group that’s still going strong. Welcoming all who wish to join in and sing, many members proudly wear brightly coloured shirts emblazoned with the choir’s distinctive artwork. Mom had several of these - long- and short-sleeved in different colours as well as one that celebrated the fundraising work taken on by the choir in support of the Kapasseni Village and Mozambique.

When she wasn’t performing, Mom attended concerts put on by the Victoria Symphony (I recall one terrifying Symphony Splash concert in Victoria’s Inner Harbour after which Mom decided she had had enough waiting around to leave and drove her car around a crowd-control barrier and straight through throngs of concert-goers trying to get back to their vehicles. Nobody was hurt, but all of us passengers in her car were traumatized). She travelled to the Pacific Northwest Folk Festival in the US whenever she could (usually with my father in tow) and every year, she’d bring back a T-shirt.

Been there, got the T-shirt

Travel lust runs in our family and my mother was responsible for instigating many trips to all corners of the world. Australia, all over Europe, Japan, many destinations in the USA, the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada - it didn’t really matter how she was travelling as long as she was on the move. Her T-shirt collection grew with every destination visited. Likewise, when she visited a gallery, special event, or museum, she often chose a T-shirt as her memento.

From Germany, yes - but proudly Canadian - evidence found in her tee-shirts.

German by birth, she renounced her citizenship when she married and later turned her back on all things German - except for the T-shirt. She was proudly Canadian and many of her Tees reflect her pride in her adopted homeland.

Of her own accomplishments, Mom was perhaps most proud of her abilities as a competitive SCRABBLE (TM) player. She also liked supporting her creative friends. No surprise, then, that she commissioned her friend Ruthie from Florida to create a number of custom shirts celebrating her involvement in her favourite game.

She travelled to competitions (and hosted many here on Vancouver Island). Those trips were good reasons to add to her collection

From silly sayings to works of art, the collection is nothing if not a colourful reminder of a woman who lived her life unapologetically.

When she was at home, sick (and later, in extended care), I made her a T-shirt quilt with some of her favourite shirt fronts. The quilt kept her warm and, I like to think, provided a way to keep some of her memories close even as she slipped ever deeper into confusion. I have no idea where it wound up - it was used and washed so often it was no doubt falling apart. I don’t know that it even came home from the hospital after she died.

I knew there were more T-shirts, and I had thought I’d make myself another quilt, but working with stretchy Tees where no two image panels are the same size or shape is a challenge and, the shirts were hers, reminders of trips, events and activities she enjoyed with those she loved.

Some of the shirts have a lot of wear left in them, but they are much too big for me and besides, I have a collection of tee shirts of my own. So, I’ve sorted those two boxes - the good shirts in great shape are going to the thrift store. Those that are so baggy (or stained - Mom apparently was a bit of a coffee dribbler…) that they won’t be much good to anyone are going into the rag bag. But the images (oh, what did we do before cell phones?) are captured. I’ll hang onto those for now. They don’t take up much space in my digital collection. They can serve as reference for artwork, perhaps - or not. Maybe someday they will be part of the great deletion that will clear some virtual room in the cloud for others after I’m gone.

In the end, I couldn’t quite let them all go. I kept two T-shirts, one from each box. They will make good night shirts and I will likely keep them until my body gives out, at which point someone else can let them go. Any guesses which two will slip into my suitcase when I return to the mountains?