The Sisterhood of the Traveling Jean Jacket

My Mom got it almost 40 years ago just after high school.

She said it was in a little hippie shop near the beach in the keys.

It was a mens, and it was big and baggy and it was warm, but not too thick and still light weight.

It was light demin, button down with a pocket on the left top corner.

It was her absolute favorite and she wore it most of my brother and my lives with almost every outfit I swear.

Many of my girlfriends have worn it throughout middle and high school, whether it was at rainy football games with hot chocolate... or a cold night at the drive in theatre. Bonfire. Going out for a party. Comfort while eating ice cream after a break up. You name it. It made its way around but always always back to my momma.

It was the last thing she was seen in the day before she died.

It was the last thing I saw her in when I dropped her off that day.

When I hugged her last.

The hospital gave it to me because she was wearing it.

It still had her Pachouli Perfume on it.

I wore it for 12 days after that, to the point it started to wear in one spot from wiping my tears and it also started to stink a little bit ahahahha. My husband practically had to steal it while i was sleeping to wash it and convice me it needed a break before it too died with her pretty much. He was right..

I put it away and wore it when I delivered my first daughter.

I wore it again two years later when my son almost died and was in the PICU.

And then I wore it 4 years later on our honey moon when I set my moms ashes free in the sea at her favorite beach, Siesta Key Beach. The same place she got it.

She had worn it there years previously standing with me in the same spot i let her go. That was when she had asked me to do just that and there in her favorite spot.

After the honeymoon I put it away and we made our plan to move to Florida where I felt her the strongest.

We moved there last year.

After a year there this past year, a great one at that. We explored and had an adventurous exciting year in the sunshine state and it broguht our family all the more closer. But it was also very isolating and we and our children missed our home town even though we loved our new home. We always felt in vacation mode and wanted the comforts of the life and people we have spent our lives building around up north. We decided after months of deliberating, that multiple factors pointed to the fact that it wasn't the best place for our big family and in turn we made the long, cross country trip again three weeks ago.

The weekend of July 15th

Now, the trip was very long and dragged out, and both my husband and I were already very tired from packing our entire house the weeks before and then loading the entire thing into the uhual all while managing parental and work life at the same time. It was like driving back from a year long vacay with twice as much shit as you came with including a very large 9 month old shepherd puppy.

Everyone had to pee 85 fucking times. And what normally takes 7-9 hours to get from Pensacola to Nashville (Halfway mark) took a whopping 12 hours and it was a shitty drive. -QUITE LITERALLY DUDE LOL- My cat pooped himself a few hours in and it smelled atrocious so that well yeah that was fun, YAY! So My four almost five year old Kaizen and Steven drove the uhual, and I drove my oldest, Aurora (8), Kirk (6), Arwyn (19 mo), Arlo (9 month old puppy) and Olaf (4 year old poopy meowing cat).

Lord almighty it was interesting!

We took the common route along I65 through Alabama, Tenesee, Kentucky eventualy going into 69 in Indiana and into MI.

At one point in the night it got chilly, and I had brought moms jean jacket, just in case so i put it on and in the morning we went poddy at Mcdonalds in Kentucky, got breakfast and either there or a rest stop around there (just before or after) it got warm again and everyone had to potty. I too the dog first and then we all went into potty and I hung up the jean jacket on the hook in the stall, I remember Rori saying wow I didnt know that was what those hooks are for. I said yup they hang your coats when you have to potty babe! she said thats cool good to know! I went potty and got everyone else pottied and washged up. Changed the baby, washed my face and such. Went back to the car. Resituated that, got everyone their snacks and all set up. We got here home to Michigan trhat afternoon and have been reacclimating and recouping for the last couple weeks. Situating our temporary living quarters until we find a new home up here, finding new jobs, switing benefits and addresses etc.

I thought it would turn up in the laundry.

I thought maybe I packed into the bag in the car.

Maybe it got packed in something else.

I've looked high and low and everywhere.

Because it is probably one of the most important things to me ever.

My husband has looked, he finds everything.

I'm pretty sure I left it on the back of that stall door.

Somewhere between my two favorite states.

I know it a long shot, and I don't even care if someone took it, clearly it was meant to be with you or where ever it is for a short purpose.

But please, if you or anyone know found an old Jean Flannel style Jacket on the weekend of July 15th somewhere northbound from FL to MI, in bathroom stall in Bum Fuck Egypt where I dont even know where exactly.... please contact me I will travel for it as its traveled for so many others.

I believe it was left somewhere along I65 northbound, between Nashville and Southern Kentucky.

Please all my sisters, and sisters sisters and mommas, share this and help me find, mommas traveling jacket as it got lost somewhere on her journey home.

I know it sounds crazy! But i'm hoping and praying that with networking and social media the way it is today, god and the universe on my side, somehow, someway, that jean jacket will find it way back to me.

September 11th, will be 10 years, since my mother killed herself.

I'm hoping that by then, and by the grace of God himself, the Unsolved Mystery of the Missing Jean Jacket will be solved.

Love always ~K