The first fifty braids were crooked.
He wore the same kind of shirt every day of my life.
Blue stripes.
Gray stripes.
Chambray.
Plaid flannel in winter.
His name was stitched in white thread on the left pocket.
STAN.
Every shirt smelled like starch, floor wax, and lemon cleaner.
That smell was the smell of being safe.
We used to joke that his closet was full of nothing but shirts.
“Shirts don’t have to be fancy, Teag,” he told me. “They just have to show up.”
He said it about shirts.
He meant it about everything.
“You don’t have to be loud, kiddo. You just have to show up.”
Last March, he was diagnosed with c*ncer.
He kept working.
He pushed his mop down the same hallways where kids called him Mr. Janitor and tossed gum wrappers at his feet.
He never said one word.
He had always dreamed of seeing me graduate.
