The Sweater and the Winter
In Millie's closet, on its own hanger, hangs a gray wool sweater.
Picture two friends, Millie, 66, and Bernice, 68. Millie is moving from Minnesota to a warm town in Mexico, and Bernice has come over to help her pack. They have been friends for thirty years and have shared more coffee than either could count.
In Millie's closet, on its own hanger, hangs a gray wool sweater. Her mother knitted it the winter Millie turned sixteen. It is heavy and a little too long in the sleeves. The wool still smells faintly of the porch where her mother sat to knit it, with a blanket over her knees and the radio on.
Millie has not worn it in ten years. She will not need it where she is going.
"It goes in the box for the church sale," Bernice said, with a pen in her hand.
"I know," Millie said. She did not move.
"But?"
"But my mother's hands made every stitch."
Bernice put the pen down. She did not argue. She sat on the bed and let Millie hold the sweater for a while. Then she asked a question: "What do you remember most about it?"
Millie described the porch and the long gray winter when her mother knitted for three months. She remembered that her mother made one sleeve too long on purpose, so Millie could grow into it. As she said it, she laughed. She realized she was describing her mother.
That afternoon Bernice took a photograph of Millie in the sweater, standing in the doorway with the sleeves folded back. Then Millie wrote on a sheet of paper, in her own hand: The winter Mama knitted, the radio, the extra-long sleeve. She kept one skein of the leftover gray yarn, wound into a ball in the bottom of a drawer.
Bernice knew a young man named Jerome, who works nights at the river docks and walks home at dawn in the cold. He tried the sweater on in the church hall. The sleeves fit him.
The thing and the feeling
| The thing | The feeling it holds | Where the feeling goes |
|---|---|---|
| The gray sweater | Her mother's winter of knitting | A photograph of Millie wearing it |
| The long sleeve | Her mother's plan for Millie to grow | A page in Millie's handwriting |
| The leftover yarn | Her mother's hands | Kept, in a drawer |
| The wool itself | Warmth on a cold morning | Jerome, on his walk home |
In her new town Millie sometimes lifts the ball of yarn out of the drawer, just to hold it. Jerome sent a note through Bernice after the first frost. It said the sweater was warm and the sleeves fit.
You could…
- Photograph yourself wearing it, even once more.
- Write down who made it and what you remember about the winter.
- Keep a small piece, such as a button or leftover yarn.
- Ask a friend to tell you who might wear it.
What did someone make for you that you have not worn in years? Share the story in the comments. A reader with a hand-made sweater in a drawer could decide what to do with it.
Tell us in the comments