It's one of the only things I have left of my dad.

It's a dull mustard colored shirt with a dark blue pattern the color a dark night's sky.The pattern is that of a row of diamonds and then two rows of parrallel stripes; this pattern repeats all over the shirt.

The shirt has egg shell white buttons running down the center of the shirt. The material of the shirt is very thin. I am not sure exactly why but I think it's either from being worn so much or because the shirt was made in Peru. I'm not sure if it was made in Peru though, the tag is missing and my mom can't remember where he bought it.

One of the points on the collar is bent from all the nights I've held it crying and wishing he would come back home.

The collar of the shirt has always kept this "scent". The smell that told my nose that my dad was nearby. It's a combination of Old Spice, leather and antique wood. Holding his shirt close to my face let me smell his scent and let me believe he was actually physically nearby.

I remember how I got the shirt.

It was the week after he died.

My mom was packing up his clothes to send to my uncle in Venezuela, who could make use of the clothes my mother believed he would never need again. I had argued with her all week long about sending away his clothes. I didn't want everything to change. I believed he was actually coming back. And I was afraid that when he did, he wouldn't have anything to wear.

So one day I went to my mom and asked for his favorite Christmas red plaid flannel shirt that he would always wear. My mom looked at me with sad eyes.

She told me that as soon as she had starting packing my older sister had asked her to save it for her. But my mother had forgotten and accidentally sent it ahead to Venezuela. I was so mad!!!

My heart burned with a clash of emotions, one being incredible anger and the other of exruciating pain from the realization that I had made. I was angry because now I knew that even if she did have it, it would not be mine. I was only ten and everyone assumed I did't understand and therefore would cope easier with the whole ordeal... They were very wrong.

I was in pain because I was a ten year old daddy's little girl who would never see her daddy again.

That night, I cried myself to sleep.

When I woke up, sitting on my bed was another one of my dad's shirts that my mom had left for me. I turned away and grabbed my dad's picture from underneath my pillow. I looked at the picture. It was of my dad sitting on the fuzzy white couch in our living room. He was smiling a smile that he always reserved for me. It was a look that had meaning only to me. It was his way of saying, " I love you".

My dad's hand was raised at his attempt to say hello to the camera. I stared at the hands that had made me cry from clumsily brushing my hair and tying my ponytails too tight. Hands that would never hug me again.

I finally noticed his shirt. I felt a jolt run through my body as I realized he was wearing the same shirt my mom had given me. The same dull mustard with the diamond and parallel patterns. I grabbed the shirt and held it close to my cheeks as the salty tears slowly rolled down my cheeks. One after another they came like a small April shower.

I looked at my dad's smile. The smile reserved for me and I knew he was ok; that he knew that I loved him.

And then I waved goodbye.

It was an average run of the mill shirt. No different or more extraordinary than most shirts but yet it meant so much more to me. Perhaps it is silly; all the fuss I made over it. How could a shirt have so much meaning and significance to a ten year old girl?

A shirt with the power to spark two of human's strongest emotions: love and sorrow.

A shirt powerful enough to bring tears to my eyes. Four years have passed since my Dad died and since I argued with my mother over a red plaid flannel shirt. But I can understand why it meant so much to me. It represented and still does, to me all the memories of my father.

And when they begin to fade as they will with the years to come I can hold up that dull mustard shirt with dark blue patterns and remember the smile reserved for only me.

12/6/99