But not any more. This picture of Mack was taken shortly after Christmas 2011. You can read more about the studio session on my PhotoBlog. That fall I had purchased this silly little gray fedora from Target. I am a practical person and my head gets cold in the winter, but I am vain so I wanted something other than a stocking cap to wear when in a suit and tie. For whatever reason Mack took a liking to it and then simply took it. All last winter he wore this hat, even to school. He was always a confident little cuss so whatever comments or criticisms he might have received from his classmates (I never heard of any) didn’t seem to bother him. When the weather was cold, that was the hat he wore unless he was playing in the snow (he was practical too).
I confess that I felt pride seeing him in that hat. It was my hat, but he wanted to wear it. It made me feel connected to him and that he, maybe, wanted to be connected to me in this silly way.
I got another gray fedora for my birthday this past September. A nicer hat by all accounts and I wore it this winter. Until this past month. Seeing my his our hat hanging from his bedstead I decided I wanted to feel connected to him, so I have been wearing it again. It doesn’t look nearly as good on me as it did on him, but I am grateful for the memories, all good and all blessed, trapped within it. They say “the hat makes the man.” I don’t know about that, but this hat is something special and it makes me feel just a bit better.
36 thoughts on “It’s just a hat”