Anniversary Week

Hello from the great state of Michigan!

I am now the proud recipient of a student visa (woohoo!) and am spending a few more days with my mom, trying my best to cheer on the Cubs, eat brats, and get blizzards at the DQ - all cherished American pastimes, at least to me - until I return to London next week.

As for this week, it's a big one for me and my mom. A big, sad one. This is the John Anniversary Week. He and my mom were married (after 18 years of domestic partnership) on July 21 and he died a week later, on July 28. Tomorrow marks the 4th anniversary of his death - and just typing that makes my heart beat a little faster and sends nervous warmth from my heart through my chest down through my arms to my fingertips.

Mom and I got through the wedding anniversary okay. We distracted ourselves by driving to Chicago since my visa appointment was the next day. Tomorrow, for the other anniversary, we will be going outlet shopping, one of our family traditions. Really, our most celebrated family tradition.

John instilled in us a passion for bargain-hunting. He used to tear through the "last chance rack" at the Land's End outlet in Schaumburg, Illinois for dress shirts he could wear to work. For only $5 each, he found dozens of crisp, new Oxford shirts that he wore with a jacket and tie to teach at a boys' school on the Upper East Side of New York City. What landed these nice, clean shirts on the "last chance rack"? These were the shirts that others had had monogrammed with their initials, and then returned to Land's End for whatever reason. Except for the embroidered letters, they were in perfect condition.

Who would want a shirt with someone else's monogram? Well, for 5 bucks and a few laughs, John did. And his students loved him for it. Every day, the boys would file into his classroom and peel back his jacket to reveal the monogram of the day. They never tired of the routine, because the initials were always different. After years of devoted outlet shopping, John had amassed a vast collection of impressively diverse initials. He even found a couple shirts with his own initials - JMH - on them! (Though the boys didn't think those were as funny.)

My mom and I visited the Land's End outlet in Schaumburg when we were in town a few days ago. We scoured the store, finally finding the "last chance rack" buried in with the women's clearance. The dinky rack held only two monogrammed robes (which is somehow a lot less amusing than shirts to me), a hot pink down vest (waaay out of season, that), a pair of jeans that looked like they were made in 1982, and a pair of elastic-waist pants that my grandmother would love. No crisp dress shirts bearing the initials of people we would never know, or, coincidentally, of people we did. No once-in-a-lifetime bargain of a butter yellow short-sleeved polo shirt with "JMH" tastefully embroidered on the chest.

"I guess things change," my mom said.

I guess they must, at some point. And that's okay.