the first last mile

I am imagining how to go about it.  Casually stroll out to the garden and look around.  Locate a shovel and when the coast is clear bury my favorite running shirt on the other side of Kilo from the a tiny quail.  I imagine if I am lucky a hundred years from now someone unearthing this piece of land would find the skeletal remains of a dog and tiny bird and this cotton shirt half degraded in the present will be nothing more than a whisper in the dirt.  If I am unlucky in three days time BC will be coming across the yard a shovel in one hand my shirt dirt covered and tore in the over saying, “Sweetness, what the hell is this?!” or “Hey Baby, care to explain?!”

It was Beach who after I returned from my morning run looked at the holes and thinness in the fabric and pronounced it dead and down.  The same kid, who I am willing to pay $5 bucks to if she will change her shirt every day this week.  “But I can wear the same pants, right?”

The soccer shorts I run in are 23 years old but you wouldn’t know it.  The shirt though as been questionable for a while now.  Last week I put a hole in it scratching an itch.

That shirt has a sister shirt it was the one I was not wearing when the DEA rolled through the back field (excuse me officer could you please hand me my shirt).  It is obviously less loved and still in one piece.  They are both at least 20 years old.  My big sister gave them to me.  My big sister who when we were little insisted she would not be seen with me on the bus to the Parley’s Way McDonald's with its brightly colored train tables and salty fries unless I brushed my hair and changed my shirt…

I wish I would have know that was going to be our last run together.  The dog, the shirt, childhood, that one amazing man, the other sister... it is easier to let things slip away slowly then have them ripped from you. And when it comes to clothing I think a little warning they are about to go is for the best.