In Her Coat: Echoes of Life

When I was fifteen, my stepfather, Chip, gave my mother a mink coat. As she took the coat out of its oversized box, tears welled up in her eyes. She looked at him as if he had just given her a million dollars or the Queen's jewels.

"Won't they be so jealous of me at the club," my mother said proudly.

My sister Katherine and I exchanged horrified glances. The thought of spending so much money on a single piece of clothing was something I could hardly fathom. And the concept of killing an animal for its fur bothered me. My sister and I turned away and looked instead at our gifts. Little did I know then, this coat would weave a narrative of its own, becoming a significant part of our shared story.

Katherine and I had our feet in two different worlds: one in which my mother and stepfather equated a person's worth with the amount of money they spent, and another where my academic father and stepmother disapproved of excessive spending. In Dad’s home we played the game of guessing how little we paid for things. I held the record by getting a brand-new dress for $15.00, and my sister was actively trying to beat me. My stepfather bought the mink coat during a time when they cost between $8,000 and $50,000. He paid at least $10,000. It came with a luxurious striped satin scarf that matched the lining.

I disliked the coat because it served as a reminder of the gulf between my mother and me. When we went out together—her donning her fur coat and me in my simple parka—we represented two distinct lifestyles. Her display of wealth embarrassed me, but she wanted the world to know she had money; she sought to show it off to as many people as possible.

“Mom, do you have to wear that? We’re just picking up some takeout,” I would plead during these common errands.

“This is the warmest coat I have. It’s cold outside.”

I also didn't like the coat because it solidified her connection to Chip, whom I had mixed feelings about. Chip was the successful business executive my mother left my father for; she had worked as his administrative assistant. She was unhappy with my academic father, partly because he couldn't provide her with the lavish lifestyle she desired. Her upbringing in poverty in Baton Rouge, Louisiana haunted her. As a child, she only had two dresses: one for Sundays and one for the rest of the week. She once mentioned that she didn't have shoes until she turned six. Caught in a midlife crisis and enticed by a romance with a man who could offer her a life of luxury, she abandoned our world for his. That garment symbolized her new life and her relationship with Chip in a painful way.

I loved my mom and wanted her to be happy. She had not found happiness with my father, and my earliest memories are of her crying. There was a particular moment when I was seven that I’ll always remember. As we hiked through the woods, we stumbled upon a serene pond filled with fish, which delighted me. However, when I turned to glance at my mother, she stood there with tears silently streaming down her face.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Oh honey, I don’t know. I’m just not happy.”

“Mom, look at how pretty the pond is. That will make you happy,” I declared.

I didn’t realize until later how much she struggled with depression and how unfulfilling she found her marriage to my father. Looking at a pond couldn’t fix that.

As a child, her rejection of my father was a difficult thing for me to understand. I felt sorry for him and didn’t completely understand why she wanted such a different lifestyle. My father once said she was such a different person in her two marriages that he likened her to a chameleon who altered herself to those around her. Because I knew her in both of those relationships, I struggled to understand who she was. Was she the woman who hiked and sewed her own clothes or the businessman’s wife who wore designer silk dresses and had her hair professionally done every week?

It's difficult to be close to someone you don’t know. And it’s difficult to know someone who doesn’t reveal who they are and what matters most to them. I didn’t realize as a teenager that understanding my mother would be a lifelong process. Perhaps she didn’t reveal herself because she did not truly know who she was, or perhaps she worried about being rejected. I was never sure. And I alternated between confusion and disappointment with her. The way she and my stepfather lived, with their enormous houses, multiple golf-club memberships, matching Mercedes cars, and expensive dinners where she bragged about ordering the most expensive item on the menu was something I couldn’t relate to. I much preferred the modest old Victorian home my father shared with my stepmother, our family canoe trips, and the comforting homemade meals.

Mom and Chip separated and reconciled multiple times. She occasionally wondered if she had made a mistake in leaving my father.

“I want for nothing, but Chip treats me terribly sometimes. He yells at me and won’t speak to me for days. Your father would never have done that to me.”

I felt angry hearing about this mistreatment. “Then leave him. Money isn’t important, Mom. It’s better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable,” I asserted.

“You're right, but remember I only made it through high school. It's not so simple for me.”

They ultimately divorced, which I thought would be better for her. And afterward I asked her if she wanted the fur coat. She refused to part with it. Then, they reconciled and remarried. I accepted that this man would be in her life for a long time. They moved eventually, spending winters in Florida and summers in New Hampshire. There was no need for a heavy winter coat now.

As we sorted through her belongings during a holiday visit, I asked, "Do you still want this winter coat?"

"Absolutely!"

"But, Mom, you don’t need it anymore. People don’t wear these nowadays."

"I want to keep it," she said firmly.

When Chip passed away, she relocated to the Chicago area to live closer to Katherine and me. My mom spent months retrieving various possessions she had either lent out or left with others. A mansion’s worth of belongings was packed tightly into a massive moving van, and in the following months, Katherine and I were overwhelmed, trying to declutter and manage the surplus. Eventually she settled into a cozy retirement facility with small private apartments, a stark contrast to her past life in 6,000 square-foot five-bedroom homes. She did the best she could to make her tiny apartment look cozy with a small blue loveseat and matching chair. The community's dining halls and many activities kept her inside most of the time. The need for a heavy coat was minimal.

Nevertheless, the mink coat continued to hang in her closet. It had aged well, unlike my mom, who struggled to walk and did everyday tasks slowly because she worried about falling. Sometimes when I visited, we went through her paperwork and items, organizing her apartment. Now and then, we’d look through her closet, getting rid of unwanted clothes. Occasionally we talked about the mink.

"Mom, what about this coat? You never wear it." I asked as gently as possible.

"I want to keep it," she would say, resolutely.

"But you could sell it."

"No."

"You could donate it and someone else could get a lot of use out of it."

"No. I need it."

No argument worked. It didn't matter that the man who had given it to her had disinherited her from his will and left all his money to his biological children. It didn’t matter that during the last days of his life he had screamed at her, “You never appreciated all I did for you!” It didn't matter that it was no longer in fashion or that wearing it might make her an easy target for robbery or theft. The mink coat would remain.

When we had to downsize her possessions to move her into a smaller assisted-living apartment that provided around-the-clock care, she would let almost anything go. She donated all her kitchen items—ones she had used for over fifty years. She gave away most of her books and disposed of all her art supplies—paints she had lovingly used for decades to create beautiful watercolor paintings. She discarded arts and crafts supplies she used to make trinkets for gifts on birthdays and holidays. And she got rid of many clothes she knew she wouldn't wear. But not the fur coat.

My mom lived to be eighty-eight years old. A few days after she moved into her assisted-living apartment, she fell and broke her hip, and we transferred her to hospice care for the last days of her life. When she was gone, Katherine and I sat in her apartment looking at the few pieces of furniture and the closets that held all the clothing she loved. We faced the heartbreaking task of going through her things one final time. She had so much clothing that we ended up filling six enormous contractor bags with her floral dresses and colorful polyester trousers she had worn over the years.

As we sorted through my mother's belongings and unraveled her life, I found myself in front of the mink coat. It hung alone in the closet, as if it was waiting for my mom. For the first time, I admired its soft and silky texture and regal appearance. Despite its age, it seemed to shine. Not a single rip or stain marred the satin lining, and the matching scarf looked as new as it did that Christmas. I pressed my cheek into the plush fur and felt comforted by the feeling of it. The familiar scent of my mom lingered on the coat, bringing me a sense of closeness to her. I imagined her wearing the coat with a big smile on her face, parading into the country club, or meeting a friend for lunch. She was younger, vibrant, happy, and full of hope.

I’m ashamed to say I only viewed the coat through the lens of my own experiences and feelings; it symbolized her departure from our lives and the rejection of my father. But I now understood this coat represented so much more to my mom than just a fashion item. It symbolized my mother's relationship with Chip and all the hopes and dreams they had shared, even through the difficulties of their forty-year journey. It reflected her desire to be cared for and indulged by a man who expressed his love through material possessions. It embodied her aspiration for a better life, to be seen as someone who had arrived and lived well. Above all, it offered a promise of warmth on bitter, wintry days to someone from the deep South. I now had a deeper understanding of my mother on that day than I did at any other time when she was alive.

As I sat there surrounded by the remnants of my mother's life, I realized the coat was probably the most valuable thing she owned. It held a piece of her and her memories, and I just couldn't let go of it. But then I thought about someone else wearing it, loving it as she had, and carrying a piece of my mom with them, which gave me the strength to place it in the donation bag.

As I did, I collapsed on the floor in tears. My mom was truly gone.

Anne E. Beall is an award-winning author whose books have been featured in People Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Toronto Sun, Hers Magazine, Ms. Career Girl, and she’s been interviewed by NBC, NPR, and WGN. She has also published in several literary journals including Minerva Rising Press, The Raven’s Perch, and Grande Dame Literary Journal. She received her PhD in social psychology from Yale University and is the founder of the strategic market-research firm, Beall Research.