Mom's Housecoat

Have you heard Dolly Parton’s song, “Coat of Many Colors?” I’m not a country music fan but somewhere along the line I remember hearing this song. It is a song that recounts Ms. Parton’s days of poverty when someone had given the family a box of varied colored rags that Mamma Parton sewed together to make Dolly a coat. While Dolly watched her mother told her the story of Joseph and prayed the coat would bring Dolly great fortune. She couldn’t wait to show it off at school and was met with ridicule from her classmates who scoffed at her raggedy coat. The message of the song is recounted in the chorus, “That one is only poor, only if they choose to be; now I know we had no money, but I was rich as I could be in my coat of many colors my momma made for me.” Avie Parton died December 5, 2003 but her spirit lives on in Dolly’s song.

My mother didn’t make me a coat of many colors but she did sew us clothes, darn our socks and had her own coat she wore. I remember that while growing up that I was always a little embarrassed that my mother was in her housecoat for many hours in the morning and was afraid that when she waved goodbye to us at the door as we went off to school that someone might see her in that raggedy old housecoat. Mrs. Cleaver was always dressed and even had a pearl necklace on! If a sitcom mom could make an effort why not mine? I hope at this point in the story you are booing and hissing me like I was the villain in a melodrama! I would give anything to see my mom in her chair in her raggedy old coat reading the bible as she gently rocked. That old housecoat is a cherished memory now. It reminds me of my mother’s sacrifices and her humble spirit that brought such joy to the lives of her children. As a child I didn’t even consider that she was more interested in meeting our needs than doing simple things like getting dressed. Everybody should have a saint in their lives and my mother was mine!

To all our moms who make such great sacrifices and share such unfathomable love… may all of us rise up and call you blessed! May the Lord of blessings shower you richly with an abiding sense of how much you are loved and appreciated! And may you know with the greatest certitude this Mother’s Day that you are loved and honored! And mom if by some incredible grace the Lord lets you look upon these words… I love you and miss you and cherish that raggedy old housecoat! -DAN