A while ago when I was visiting my Mom, she offered to "finally" wash my backpack, given how it's looked to her the last couple of times I've stayed over. When I told her I've been washing it all along this year, she just went "oh." and realized how beat up it was. That's when I admitted that both my bottom pouch zippers were broken.
This means she knows my pack is on its last leg. Knowing her, this almost guarantees a new backpack for Christmas. I almost don't want a new one, even though I need it. This is partly why I was keeping it secret, not even mentioning to Mom everything else on it that's been removed or ripped.
This backpack was one of the last gifts given to me jointly by my Mom and Dad. The last Christmas before Dad passed away, in fact. It's gone through a lot with me in the last four years, not even including the constant back and fourth from work and all my traveling around Boston. I've used it to travel to five states over a dozen times, going to my first two out of New England poetry readings and even overseas to American Samoa. With nearly a half-decade of deaths, break-ups, uncertainties and upheavals, this was one of the things I could call a constant.
I don't want to throw this away. I want to hang it like a retired basketball player's numbered shirt.
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