2x pajamas
I had my 33rd birthday shortly after I found out I was pregnant with shaky baby.
My husband– oh wait, we weren’t married yet– babydaddy brought home a small but loving offering. We were probably broke at that time, we were perennially broke. It was a beautiful dream journal and a pair of pajamas.
The pajamas were from Wal Mart, but they had a small botanical print on them that was lovely, satin trim, and they were so soft. The ADD, or HSP, or whichever, in me is so grateful for clothing that does not rub my skin in any way whatsoever. Such clothes are hard to find.
As he handed them to me with this sweet aww shucks look on his face he said, I know it’s not much, and you aren’t this big, but you will be, and you will need something soft and comfortable for while you are pregnant. It is one of my sweetest memories of our time together.
Fast forward over four years. I’m still wearing the pajamas. The elastic is soft and gentle but tight enough to hold the britches up. The satin covers have come off the buttons. I have stained them with the various fluids and substances of my humanity. I wash them and wear them over and over. The fabric is softer than ever, and I think they are lovely. The crotch hangs almost to my knees.
A while back I forgot them at my friend’s house. I was staying with her on a healing school weekend… her mother runs the school and she’s my best friend from library school and that’s how I know her mother and ended up in healing school. Anyhoo I forgot them on the floor in her bathroom when I got up and left for school in the morning. Now that I think of it… I had run away early when I had a sudden and huge late grief explosion regarding my miscarriage a year and a half before. No wonder I forgot them.
Anyway. I went there last weekend and spent several hours with her and her new precious little baby, born Dec. 31. It was such a special time. I can never spend enough time holding a tiny baby.
She said, I keep forgetting to give your pajamas back to you. I said, those are my pregnant girl pajamas. She said, I know. I wore them to the hospital.
I teared up then, and I am tempted to cry now. I am wearing the pajamas. I finally unpacked them from my trip. They smell sweetly of whatever fabric softener she uses.
She and I have been through many years and many friendship obstacles. Not least, she lives five hours away and has a busy life of her own. If it weren’t for the healing school I mightn’t see her ever. To have her silently reach out and affirm our friendship after so many years, in that way, to need me, I guess is the only way I can think of to say it, when we are so far apart– I had felt like a pretty fraudulent friend, not to be at the hospital for her c section. But she took me with her.
Snif.
