Keep me warm, Keep me close

Illustration by Harvey Doniego

Dear Ammi,

I just want to say thank you, for postponing giving away the clothes in your donation bin. I remember in 2021, I had just discovered Arctic Monkeys’ music and was looking for a new way to spice up my school uniform. Hanging out the top of your donation pile was a leather jacket with a small hole in the sleeve. When I asked you about it, you said you didn’t want it anymore and it’s been mine ever since. But what about before then?

Dear Midhat,

You wear that jacket way too often, and you need to learn how to sew. Then, the hole could be mended properly, instead of with those safety pins. I’m just surprised there aren’t more, considering how far that jacket has travelled with me.

Around 1990, I was in medical school in Pakistan, flipping through a clothing catalogue with Nana, and I pointed out this leather jacket to him. The only thing was that I didn’t want to wear it with my kurta shalwars - it wasn’t the look I had in mind. I pictured it with pants and a sweater, something I would wear when I eventually moved to England.

A couple years later, I graduated from medical school and married your father. We decided to start our life together in England. A couple of days before leaving, Nana came to me with a surprise. Out of a bag, he pulls out the very same jacket from the catalogue.

“To go with your pants and sweaters.”

It was his wedding gift to me as I moved countries for the first time. The jacket reminded me of him as I traded my shalwars for trousers to wear to the store. Your oldest sister was born, so we stayed for a couple more years, then moved back to Pakistan for your dad’s work in 1995.

Since that move, the jacket stayed packed away. After all, it would have been way too hot to wear in Pakistan. Come 1997, we moved to Texas. It was not ideal weather to wear the jacket either, was it? So, it stayed in storage, but I didn’t want to get rid of it just yet.

In 2003, we moved to Newfoundland, but there the winters were far too cold to wear it. We waited for those weeks in October or March, when the weather was the perfect degree of cool. And I wore it every day I could.

After you were born and we had moved to Ontario, that jacket stayed buried in the closet. It was not my style anymore – a bit too youthful. And then, you remember, it was sitting in my pile of giveaways. When you asked me about it, I warned you it was ripped, but you showed me a box of safety pins you would fix it with, and you’ve been wearing it ever since. I get so happy whenever you tell me someone complimented your jacket because Nana would have loved to see you in it. But if you’re going to continue wearing it, learn how to sew and fix that hole.