Dad and Jim: The Shirt

“I can get it.”

“Let me help. I will just pull us in.’

“I don’t need help. I can get it.”

“If you can get it, why is it still there?”

Dad and Jim were at it again. We were in my boat, fishing for crappies on Lake Wilhelm and Jim had just thrown his jig into a tree. He was determined to get it back.

Me: I can move us in with the boat. Just sit still Dad before you both fall out of the boat.

Jim: I almost have it.

Dad: I won’t fall out of the boat.

Me: Jim, it is a jig I made, not worth but 25 cents. I’ll give you another one.

Jim: I want this one.

Dad: Oh, now look what you did.

Me: Everybody sit down. He has the jig and I am backing out.

Dad: Look what you did.

Jim: I didn’t do anything.

Dad: Yes, you did. You caused me to get a hole in this perfectly good shirt.

Jim: Did not. You did it yourself.

Dad: Wouldn’t happen if you hadn’t thrown that jig into a tree and just insisted on getting it back.

Jim: Well, I still didn’t do it.

Dad: You did.

Jim: So I will buy you a shirt if you will just forget it.

Dad: Don’t go buying me a shirt. I can get my own shirt.

Jim: Well, I am gonna.

Me: Let’s forget it and go to lunch.

At lunch they started again, as they often would for the next several years when the three of us got together. Jim liked my Dad like his own, and looked after Dad as I did. I remember once when Jim was driving down the road and saw Dad on a ladder. He stopped and chased Dad off the ladder. Dad was just a little old and a little too shaky to be climbing ladders. Jim did what Dad needed done, put the ladder away, chastised Dad for not calling him or me, and went on his way. A true friend to both Dad and I. (By the way, I only know this because Jim ratted Dad out to me, so I knew what Dad was up to.)

But back to the shirt. To be sure, that shirt was not what I would call “perfectly good”. Dad did not throw clothes away and that shirt was old enough to rip on its own. He punched that hole in it when he reached for a branch to pull the boat into shore. Jim really did not do anything, but it provided an opportunity for them to bicker with each other, as they always did.

Dad and Jim argued like brothers, but Dad loved Jim like a son.

They argued about that shirt literally until Dad’s dying day.

At the funeral home, Jim was a constant support, as I knew he would be. Jim was family. At some point during the visitation schedule, he came up and pulled me aside. He had tears in his eyes when he asked if he could buy Dad that shirt and give it to him.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“But I said I would.”

“It is up to you, but if you want to, I think Dad would approve.”

The next day he came and tried to hand that shirt to me to put with Dad. I told him that the shirt was between him and Dad, and he should do it. He disappeared but soon returned, telling me that he put it under the blanket at Dad’s feet.

We buried that shirt with Dad the next day.

Jim is gone now, too. He was the most compassionate man I ever knew. He understood what it means to have a friend, and what it means to be one. I am pretty sure that he and Dad still argue about that shirt. As friends do.