August 3, 2024
Young adults don’t usually think about the clothes they’ll be wearing for their own funeral. They have their full life ahead of them and are planning for the future.
Parents don’t usually think about having to pick out burial clothes for their child. They think about their child’s graduation day, wedding day, about watching them create memories with their own children and just joining in on the flow.
Yet here we are.
We have to decide what John will wear for his own funeral and this sucks.
John wasn’t a suit and tie kind of guy so I’m not burying him in a suit and tie.
He always wore fatigues.
His lifelong dream was to be a soldier, and he went to boot camp to become a marine. Unfortunately, it was a dream deferred when he was released on honorable discharge before completion.
In spite of that, John was a military man in his heart, so both his dad and I, know without a shadow of a doubt what he would want to wear.
Fatigues.
But they can’t be just any old fatigues. Not the type of fatigues ordered on Amazon and delivered at your door. They have to be official fatigues worn by soldiers in the military.
I had no idea where to find them, but I knew Ronnie would.
Ronnie’s having a really hard time dealing with John’s murder, so I’ve taken the lead, along with my sister-mom, in handling all the affairs concerning John’s funeral but picking out John’s burial fatigues is the perfect thing for Ronnie to do. I asked if he’d go with me to buy them because I had no idea where to go.
Of course, he agreed and knew the perfect place; General Merchandise Co, which is a military surplus store.
Ronnie used to take John to General Merchandise Co, all the time when he was a child/teenager because John loved all things military. They would spend hours on end in that store picking out all types of military items from clothes to canteens. John would come home with the biggest smile on his face as he dumped everything out of the bag, onto the floor, to show me what he got.
But today’s visit would be nothing like visits from days past.
We pulled up to the store and as soon as we entered the door, I understood why John loved it so much. It was military heaven and had everything you could think of inside. It also had a musty smell to it but not musty in the sense of funky. Musty as in the musty odor of long-term storage. These clothes were worn by soldiers and treated with cleaning chemicals before being placed in storage, so the mixture of chemicals and storage made the building smell musty.
Ronnie paused for a moment and looked around. I could tell by the look in his eyes, he was going back down memory lane and thinking of the last time he and John were in this store together during much happier days.
I rubbed his back and said, “I know this is so hard for you.”
That quickly snapped him out of it and although there were rows and rows full of fatigues in assorted colors and designs, Ronnie went directly to the rack which had John’s favorite kind. He pulled out several shirts in John’s size, held them up and meticulously looked at each sleeve, then the front of the shirt, followed by the back. I watched without saying a word, thinking they’re all the same, but maybe he was just waiting to get that special feeling.
He then said, “This is the one”, and walked over to another rack filled with pants and did the same thing.
I could tell this was taking a toll on him and asked if he wanted to get anything else before we went to check out.
He surveyed the store and said, “No, I think we’re done here.”
As we were walking toward the register, he suddenly stopped and said,
“Socks. We still need to get him some socks.”
He went over to the area of the store to grab a pair of socks which took much longer than picking out Johns clothes.
I walked over to the register and patiently waited.
The clerk rang us up and we headed to the door. Ronnie paused and turned around to get one last look at the place which brought John so much joy.
He then shook his head and walked out the door.
The outfit Ronnie chose for John to wear looks exactly like the one he’s wearing below.
I can see John giving Ronnie a thumbs up as he smiles down on him saying,
“Good job, dad.”
And of course, the mom in me wasn’t going to let my child smell musty, so as soon as we got home, I threw everything in the washer and added an extra dose of Downy for good measure.
I’m sure John rolled his eyes and laughed, thinking “Soldiers don’t put Downy on their clothes, mom.”
Leave a Reply