I was sitting with a group of people in the peaceful, prayerful atmosphere of the Loyola House chapel listening to Father Eric leading us in a personal reflection as part of an evening service of reconciliation. He was suggesting that sometimes there is buried in our memories an experience, perhaps even going back to early childhood, where we have been hurt or have hurt someone in a way that leaves us in need of healing or forgiveness. As I thought about this, to my surprise the memory of a little brown coat came to me and I had to struggle to hold back the tears.

   I was sitting with a group of people in the peaceful, prayerful atmosphere of the Loyola House chapel listening to Father Eric leading us in a personal reflection as part of an evening service of reconciliation.  He was suggesting that sometimes there is buried in our memories an experience, perhaps even going back to early childhood, where we have been hurt or have hurt someone in a way that leaves us in need of healing or forgiveness.  As I thought about this, to my surprise the memory of a little brown coat came to me and I had to struggle to hold back the tears.

There was such a look of satisfaction and delight in my mother’s eyes the evening she finished sewing the last buttons on the coat that several weeks earlier she had begun making for me, her darling little boy. When she was first measuring me for this sewing project, I felt bathed in the warmth of her care as her hands moved over me with the cloth measuring tape. I was of course squaring my shoulders, puffing out my chest, stretching my arms, making myself as large as possible to show what a big boy I was, compensating as best I could and as I often did for being small for my age and so much less than my three siblings who never let me forget that I was the baby of the family. In retrospect I know that often enough, when it was to my advantage, I would milk that baby bit for all that it was worth. As much as I felt comforted by the way my mother was fussing over me so that I could have a new piece of clothing there was somewhere inside of me a vague wariness, an uneasiness that intensified with subsequent fittings as this urgent enterprise advanced.

It was, as far as I could remember, the most ambitious sewing project my mother had ever attempted.  She had certainly done more than her share of mending and darning for all four us, especially for me and my two brothers; and she had made simple dresses for herself and my sister, Betty.  By then my very talented sister, the second oldest, was doing her own mending and sewing.  My proud parents always made sure we were neatly dressed and clean before we left the house but only Christmas, Easter and birthdays would be the wondrous occasion for the purchase of new clothing. Given the meager earnings dad brought home from his work as porter with the CNR (the Canadian National Railway) we learned to make due with fix-ups, make-overs and hand-me-downs.  But a winter coat with lining and pockets and a collar, that seemed to me and perhaps to her as well, a momentous challenge.

It was mid-winter and my coat, handed down from my brother and of which I was quite proud, seemed in the eyes of my mother just too threadbare and weary for the two and a half month journey to Easter. In was in this mind that she set about to solve the problem with material from a discarded winter coat of her own. Gord’s old jacket was just fine as far as I was concerned.  I always hoped that his clothes would pass on to me something of his vibrant and carefree spirit.  I remember how great I felt a year and a half earlier when I first slipped into that black wool jacket with the big collar that could cover my ears and the leather patches on the elbows.  Although a bit too roomy it nonetheless made me feel bigger and stronger. That morning I had the power to run (almost fly) all the way to Westwood Grade School in record time with only a single reluctant stop to wait for some traffic to pass so that I could dash across the highway.

Winter was the most difficult season for my parents to keep us properly clothed.  Mom made warm scarves for us but that was the extent of the knitting ability that her frozen left elbow and wrist would allow.  She cut and sewed mittens from sweaters that had become too small even for me or that could not sustain any further darning. For the most part I was grateful for the warmth of those mittens but with every new pair I always felt some shame for a couple of days.  Although almost everyone in our end of town was poor, I never noticed anyone else wearing such mittens and I hoped that no one would recognize my old sweater on my hands.

When I was two years old, my mother suffered from a severe attack of arthritis for which she was hospitalized for a number of weeks.  Her absence was traumatic for her young children all of which she had born within a span of five years.  I for one was more frightened than delighted when she did come home with her left arm in a sling and a cast from the wrist almost to the shoulder. I can still remember her vivid description years later of how the doctor finally cut away the cast; then with both hands and with all his might gradually managing to pull the bent arm, its elbow resting on the edge of a table, down, down, down until it was fully extended.  When he let go the arm snapped right back to the ninety degree angle it had been in for all those weeks and the way it would remain for the rest of her life.

The evening the coat was being finished the four of us kids were all together in the living room where we usually spent our winter evenings.  After supper Rob, the oldest of us, had lit the oil stove, just the way dad had taught him to do when dad would be away on the road.  There was always an air of tension in the room when this stove was being lit since dad had stressed how any mistake in the process could result in an explosion that would be devastating for us and our precious little home.  I always breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the familiar swoosh of the lighting process and then began to feel and smell the oily warmth flowing into the room. That warmth would also drive out some of the chill from the two tiny rooms with bunk beds, their doorways on either side of this dark benevolent monster that both comforted and frightened me.   By now dad would be on the return trip from Winnipeg, perhaps bringing with him some Winnipeg gold eye, a fish that was supposed to be such a delicacy that I always tried my best to enjoy or at least pretend that I did.  I would be happier when he brought us a comic book or two that someone had discarded on his section of the train.

Earlier that evening the four of us had almost torn the evening newspaper into shreds fighting over who would get to read the comics first. 

“I had dibs on them.”

“You did not.”

“I did so.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.”

“You got to read them first last night.”

“No I didn’t, Gord did.”

“No I didn’t, it was Rob”

Finally, mom settled the matter.  “Stop that fighting. Just wait ‘til your Dad gets home. Remember what he said, anymore fighting and he’ll stop getting the newspaper.  Betty you can read them first, then Rob, then Gord.  Bill you can read them first tomorrow.”   “Ah”, was the united response of us three boys. My brothers, I’m sure, were at least relieved that I didn’t get the paper first since I was such a slow reader.  Eventually, the comics got past on to me and an atmosphere of peace settled in the room.  As mom continued her sewing and the four of us lying on the floor got absorbed in a game of Chinese checkers, a familiar feeling of contentment took hold of me.  I so much loved these winter evenings when we were together and I was being included in whatever my brothers and sister were doing.

I was five years old the summer my mother herded her little flock onto the bus in Toronto and brought us to see this little ramshackle bungalow in Oakville.  The grass growing around it was up to my shoulders as we peered through the dirty, cracked and broken windows into its four lonely looking rooms with their sadly peeling walls and bare, rickety wooden floors.  Mom had been told about this place by a friend who happened to be a relative of one of the half dozen or so black families living here in this town of four thousand inhabitants.  Mom was looking for a way to escape for the summer from the oppression she must have been feeling, sharing the home of her uncle and aunt in the inner city. I was enjoying this first adventure into the country, never imagining that we would actually move into this desolate structure with its faded whitewashed stucco walls, black trim and black asphalt shingled roof, and not just for the summer but finally for over a dozen years. Now, three years later, I was loving every aspect of this cozy home and its surroundings.

“It’s all done; get up Bill and let’s see how it looks on you.”  By this time I was out of the checker game, so I offered no resistance to mom’s enthusiastic request.  I backed into the outstretched coat, slipping one arm into a sleeve and then the other.  Mom pulled it up over my shoulders and then turned me around to face her.  As she buttoned it up as though I was a much younger child, I could sense but not share her feeling of satisfaction.  I had to admit reluctantly that it wasn’t such a bad fit, other than the sleeves being a bit long and the shoulders a bit droopy.  But as I examined what I could see of it; the thick, soft, sandy coloured material, the four big black buttons, the way it reached almost to my knees in what seemed to me more like something a girl should be wearing, my heart sank and sank and sank. As strong as my need was to please my mother I could not imagine wearing this thing to school the next day.  I felt trapped.  My lips quivering, I struggled to say, “I don’t want to wear it.”   

“What do you mean; you don’t want to wear it.  It fits real good; it looks good on you.”

“I don’t want to wear it.”

Then Betty stood up, and started pulling at the collar.  “It looks fine”, she said.

“I don’t want to wear it”, I sniffled no longer able to hold back the tears.

Rob and Gord were looking up at me but not saying a word.  I was looking to them for support, but they just stared.  If either one of them had said a word of encouragement I might have been swayed. I suspected that they were seeing the coat the same way that I was and were secretly delighting in my predicament.

“I can’t wear it.”

“Don’t be silly, of course you can wear it.”

Sensing mom’s disappointment, I just wanted to get out of the coat and out of the situation.  Stubbornly I began to undo the buttons.

“Wait, go look at yourself in the mirror; you’ll see how nice it looks, and it will look even better when I’ve ironed it.”

I did go into the bedroom but a quick glance at the mirror only confirmed my suspicion. The only comfort was in seeing myself slipping out of this heavy burden.

There was an uneasy silence as I handed mom the coat.  Then joining my brothers for a second game of Chinese checkers, I tried my best not to think of the next morning.  Betty was conferring with mom about the sewing techniques used in producing what to them seemed a work of art but to me a disaster.

Well, the dreaded next morning did come, and against my whimpering protests I was sent off to school in my new brown coat.  I can’t remember the walk to school. Probably I was with my brother Gord. Certainly, no one could have made fun of me and my homemade coat, for that would be something I would never have forgotten.  I do remember my walk home alone that afternoon. It was in the middle of the January thaw.  The snow had been melting for several days and the dirt road on which we lived was not only bare but spotted with puddles.  The thin glaze of ice that covered these puddles in the morning was mostly gone by the afternoon.  Was it intentional, was it a pure coincidence or was it some kind of other worldly intervention? All I know is that while I was playing at the edge of a particularly large and muddy puddle, something produced and intimate encounter between me and the puddle. Perhaps a truck splashed through it drenching me from head to toe. 

I was too stunned to really know what had happened.  As I recall the incident I have a niggling doubt about whether it was a passing vehicle that splashed me or did I trip and fall, or ??? I was still stunned when cold, stiff and dripping muddy water onto the kitchen floor I fearfully presented myself to mom.  She just starred long and hard at her pitiful looking child. Then, without a word of either scolding or comfort, her eyes welling with tears, she peeled the soggy coat from me and began the clean up process of me, my clothes and the kitchen floor.

The coat was never mentioned or seen again, in fact, it was not thought of again by me until some seventy years later, during that service of reconciliation in the Loyola House chapel.

Now I continue asking pardon of God and of my dear mother for my ingratitude and lack of appreciation for all the care and love that she put into that coat.  How I wish I could see that coat again and feel its soft texture as I hold it to my cheek.  Every morning as I give thanks for another day of life, I thank God for my many blessings always including my dad and especially my mom, not just for the little brown coat, and the scarves and mittens but for all of the ways she loved and cared for me and my siblings until she went home to her well-deserved lasting dwelling place at the age of 96.  Also I pray for the wisdom to know all the other ways that I am unaware and ungrateful for the many gifts and blessing that have and continue to come to me each day, for all the little brown coats that I fail to appreciate because they are not a perfect fit or not quite to my liking or in one way or another fall short of my expectations.   

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All photos are courtesy of Brendan McManus, SJ and were taken near Ignatius Jesuit Centre in Guelph, Ontario.