Everyone. Everyday.
This morning, I realized I was wearing my brother’s sweater.
I was standing in front of the mirror getting ready for the day. Nothing unusual. Just the quiet
rhythm of a routine I have done a thousand times before.
And then, for some reason, it hit me.
It is one he got from his job at the health care system where he worked. The logo is stitched on
the chest, and underneath it are two simple words.
Everyone. Everyday.
I have seen those words before. Many times. But this morning they caught me off guard. Maybe
it is because grief does not always arrive in the big moments. Sometimes it shows up in the
most ordinary ones.
Everyone. Everyday.
Standing there in the mirror, I realized this was not the first time I had wrapped myself in one of
my brother’s sweaters.
When we were in high school, he had these oversized sweaters from Chess King. Big and
colorful, the kind of bold patterns that felt very “Cosby Show” at the time. They hung loosely, the
sleeves falling past my hands, like something you could disappear into.
He was older than me, and like a lot of older siblings, he had his things. And I still borrowed
them anyway.
I do not remember exactly why I started wearing his sweaters. Maybe because they were warm.
Maybe because they were comfortable. Or maybe because there is something about wearing
something that belongs to someone you love that makes you feel a little more steady in the
world.
Sometimes, they even carried the faint scent of his Polo cologne.There is one day in particular that comes back to me now.
The day I was in a car accident in high school.
It happened right in front of our school. One moment everything was normal, and the next
everything changed. I think I remember looking up and seeing the truck just before the crash.
And then chaos.
So many people saw it. Students, teachers, people arriving for the day. I remember how scared
I was. The noise. The confusion. The way time seemed to stretch and blur all at once.
And I remember what I was wearing.
One of my brother’s sweaters.
I can still see pieces of that day so clearly. The shards of glass tangled in my hair. The sharp,
unforgettable smell from the jaws of life as firefighters worked to cut my friend out of the car.
That smell has never really left me.
I broke my collar bone that day, along with other injuries. I remember lying there realizing I could
not even take the sweater off because my arm was broken.
And in the middle of all of that, one of the thoughts that crossed my mind was that my brother
was going to be upset.
Because it was his sweater. And I had borrowed it. And now I could not even take it off.
It is strange, the things we think about in moments like that.
Looking back now, it feels almost tender.
At the time, he was still here. Just my brother. Just a sweater I had borrowed like I had borrowed
so many before.
This morning, standing in front of the mirror wearing one of his sweaters again, I found myself
thinking about that.
About how objects hold stories.
About how something as simple as a sweater can carry years of memory inside of it.
Back then, it was just something I borrowed.
Something I would eventually give back.
But life has a way of changing the meaning of ordinary things.Now, years later, I am the one who holds onto his sweaters.
I have several of them. And I wear them often.
They still feel the same.
Still a little too big.
Still warm.
Still familiar.
And sometimes, if I pay close enough attention, I can almost catch the faint trace of his cologne.
This one has two words stitched across the front.
Everyone. Everyday.
I stood there in the mirror this morning thinking about those words, and about how love
sometimes stays with us in the quietest ways.
A borrowed sweater.
A frightening morning outside a high school.
A memory that still carries the smell of metal and broken glass.
And now, an ordinary day, getting ready in front of the mirror, wrapped in something that once
belonged to him.
Maybe that is how love continues.
Not just in the big moments we remember, but in the small, steady ways it remains.
Everyone.
Everyday.