• The Housecoats

I like to meander through the aisles of second hand stores to see what the deals are. Sometimes I go looking for something specific, like this particular day when I wanted to make some mittens out of old sweaters, until I came upon the housecoats.

The store I visited was very popular, and I had to wait a few moments to get to the stand of sweaters I wanted, so I let myself get distracted by the housecoats instead. There was something about several of the housecoats there that reminded me of being little and at home with my mom, because she always wore these cotton housecoats, usually floral, some with zippers and others with ties. There were about six of them hanging on the rack, and I looked closer.

These housecoats were soft and faded, and had obviously been washed may times. Some were floral, some were printed abstract, all were looking a little old and worn and tired as they clung onto the wire hangers. I looked up at the first one, and saw a name tape ironed in the facing just below the collar. Agnes, it said. I looked at the next one, and it said Ruth. The third one had a name tape ironed on top of another name tape; Carol. These were housecoats that had been donated to the second hand store, seemingly from a senior’s home of some sort. They made me feel just a little sad as I looked at them, because each housecoat had someone’s name written on iron on fabric tape, and pressed into the collar.  Obviously, they had come from seniors who had them labelled so they didn’t get lost in the laundry of the facility where these ladies had lived, and I wondered how they felt as adults wearing labelled clothing, similar to how a young child would have their coats and boots labelled for school. I felt the fabric, thought of the women and the lives they had lived, and tried to honour them for a few moments.