Page Two of Robes, My Mother and Me
Over the years Mom and I refined our ideas about what a good robe meant to us. We both preferred long robes to protect our legs from winter drafts. The robe should button, tie, or zip down the front for ease of putting on and taking off. We liked washable fabrics because our robes often showed signs of the household chores we did while wearing them.
I learned from Mom that a good time to work on cooking tasks to be finished later in the day was right after breakfast, while still wearing my robe. For this reason, the sleeves must not be too full and flowing, as in the traditional kimono style. The beauty of a full sleeve suffers from being dragged through food, over hot burners and into dish water.
After I started befriending cats, I had to stop wearing terry cloth robes, although I like that comforting fabric. Cats feel compelled to climb a terry cloth robe, and their claws quickly transform the material into dangling threads.
Our love of robes was not always about practicality. As a birthday gift, I gave my mother a pale pink bed jacket that tied at the neck with a satin ribbon because she liked to read in bed. In turn, she gave me a bed jacket to wear in the hospital after the birth of one of my sons. Once home again, I had little time to linger over a book, in or out of bed, during those years of raising four boys.
One summer when I arrived in Omaha, the closest city to our family home in southwest Iowa, I learned that my father was seriously ill and had been transferred to a hospital there. Each day Mom and I drove the forty-five miles to Omaha to see him and, as his condition improved, we began to think of less serious things. Omaha had been our preferred place to shop throughout my childhood, and so we decided to go shopping. I admired a burnt-orange robe with an empire waist that fastened with a single tie at the side and fell in flattering folds to the floor. Mom bought the robe for me, and we took it back to Dad’s hospital room to show him. He had a good eye for style, and his smile approving our purchase seemed especially sweet that day.
As she grew older, my mother caught on to catalog shopping. Every so often she’d order a robe to be mailed directly me. I wore the red paisley cotton that billowed about my ankles as I walked through a multitude of summers, until the colors faded and newer robes replaced it. The blue chintz with bright colored flowers was more a hostess gown than robe, but it arrived the summer after my divorce, just when I needed some cheer in my life.
Mom was a widow and I newly separated when she came to visit me at my home in California. We went shopping, that reliable cure for life’s tough times. She’d seen a picture of a friend’s niece in a white robe and thought I should have one. We found a cream-colored robe with elegant satin piping around the lapels, just like those of the sophisticated girls I’d known in college. But I was long years away from my carefree dorm days.
As I made the transition from full-time homemaker to working woman, the robes kept on coming. Mom usually told me that a box was on its way, giving me something to look forward to when I arrived home from work. Her choices always agreed with my taste because, after all, she had educated me about the essentials of color, fabric and, style.
Being able to wear robes I couldn’t afford to buy myself boosted my spirits during those years when it seemed like I’d have to work forever to get my finances to a more secure level. When I put on the red, white and blue striped gingham robe, I felt more optimistic. It seemed I could relax more completely after a difficult work week when I donned the black cotton kimono decorated with flowers in shades of aqua and orchid.
One of the last robes my mother gave me came as a complete surprise, because it arrived unannounced and was different from the others she’d chosen for me. White chenille backed by a rose-patterned fabric, with the roses repeated on wide quilted lapels and cuffs may have looked frivolous, but the robe turned out to be both comfortable and long lasting. Mom said she’d liked the extravagant look of the robe when she saw it in a catalog. I doubt I’ll ever want to part with that fading reminder of our shared history of robes.
