Coat

Annie and Coat Last Weekend Annie and Coat when they first met


I have posted about Coat before, but as we come up on four years since Annie's been home, I think Coat deserves another post of his very own.

Guangzhou was hot and humid that November as we prepared to leave China with our newly-adopted daughter. Annie was four years old and we had fallen in love with her picture months earlier. The fears and doubts we had about becoming first time parents at the age of 47 vanished the moment we saw her in person. In that instant, three lives were irrevocably changed and we became a family forever.

We flew into a cold and rainy Pacific Northwest autumn. Our friend Laura was in the crowd waiting at the airport to meet us. She was cradling her own daughter, who had come home from China just a few months earlier. Laura had thoughtfully brought a jacket for Annie to wear into the chilly, wet weather. Annie, fresh off her first plane ride and thrust into a world full of sights and sounds, smells and words so very different from the orphanage she grew up in, latched onto that jacket as if it were a lifeline. It was light purple with a soft lining, pockets and a hood. Somehow that cute little girl’s jacket evolved into Coat--Annie's security blanket, a never-ending source of comfort and a friend who is always there when she needs him. She sleeps with Coat, he watches TV with her and snuggles with her while she reads. He is always with us, though he most often waits patiently in the car when we are out and about.

In the beginning, Annie wore Coat like, well, a coat. At the end of that first winter she was growing out of him. By that time, though, Coat had gone far beyond normal coathood and his importance has only increased over the years. He (and Coat is definitely a boy) goes everywhere with Annie. Coat has been to China twice, when we brought home first a little sister, then a little brother, for Annie. I was more afraid of losing Coat during our travels than I was of losing just about anything else. Passports, paperwork, money...all those things could be replaced. But not Coat.

Coat has had other adventures. He was once left in a little children's clothing store late on a Saturday afternoon. The store was closed on Sunday. I left desperate messages on their voice mail, but couldn't get a hold of anyone until Monday. We were waiting at doors when the store opened and Annie ran straight in to rescue Coat. Another time he accidentally stayed behind at my parents' house after a visit. They live about 50 miles from us. My Mom had to express mail him back to us the next day.

At first we washed Coat on a regular basis, but he has become a little too fragile for that now. His seams are coming apart, his purple is darkened by age and dirt and his very fabric is starting to deteriorate. Besides, there is his special Coat smell, developed over the years. It’s probably best not to think about what substances might be contributing to his aroma, since Coat is often dragged across floors, walked on and has had many things spilled on him. Annie sleeps with Coat close to her face and when she says goodbye to Coat in the morning, the last thing she does is give him a sniff.

Coat is a part of the family and we all watch out for him. He’s the first thing Annie reaches for when she wakes up in the morning. Should she somehow forget to bring him as we leave the house, her sister or brother will go find him and bring him to her. The other night he was nowhere to be found and all five of us went on a hunt. Thankfully he was found hiding under the seat in the car and all was right with our world.

Annie is eight now and may someday outgrow Coat. She's promised that I can have him when she does. Perhaps he will live on in a quilt she can give her own child. Coat is too much a part of the fabric of our lives to ever let him go.