Like Mother, Like Daughter, Like Vintage Bird Shirt

The older I get the more I want to be like my mom. When you’re little your parents are superheroes. Then you gradually slide down the inverted bell curve of teenagehood, until one day you stop rolling your eyes at them long enough to realize they are actual human beings. That’s when the graph of being proud to be related to these older, heretofore unrecognized life forms, who may actually know a bit more than you do after all, starts to tick up to the right. When your parent is no longer around, that uptick shoots like a rocket.

I was remembering today how I never really thought one way or the other about whether I looked like my mom until a few years ago I posted some photos of us side by side at the same ages. Nobody would mistake us for twins, but I love that we have the same smile! I’m posting them again in honor of Mother’s Day.

When I was looking for these pictures, I ran across this picture.

This was my all-time favorite shirt of my mom’s. I called it The Bird Shirt, and I thought she looked beautiful in it. When I saw this photo today it flashed in my head that I thought she had saved that shirt, because it was a favorite of hers too. I went to the closet and dug out the box I kept of some of her vintage clothes and there it was…The Bird Shirt!

Turns out The Bird Shirt is actually an early 1970s Kitty Hawk Industries Ltd sweater with embroidered love birds on the front, and I love it just as much now as I always have. More. Holding in my hands this shirt that is so iconic of my mom in my memory makes me feel closer to her. I’m so glad she saved it all those years ago!

While I was digging through the storage bin I also found the following shirts.

This Coca-Cola shirt that I remember her wearing around the house *all* the time with her white terry cloth shorts!

The tie dye shirt my mom made in art class in high school! The light in my living room doesn’t do it justice in the photo. It’s beautiful shades of peach and pink and yellow and white. She told me some of her classmates liked hers so much they asked her to make ones for them, but alas, an entrepreneur she was not.

I found a photo of her wearing the tie dye shirt while talking on the phone in their (my parent’s) first apartment.

I literally have no idea on the origin story of this Virginia is for lovers shirt, but I am totally on board for it. It’s soft and worn and I love the vintage look of it. Based on the cut and the size, I’m guessing it must have been my dad’s? To the best of my knowledge, neither of my parents ever visited Virginia to pick up a tourist shirt, but I never got to ask my mom about it, so I guess it will remain a mystery!

Wait! Breaking news on the mystery! I just noticed this picture of my dad and me. Could this be the Virginia shirt he’s sleeping in?! I mean, it *could* be? I don’t have my forensic tools on me at the moment, but…who knows?!

Anyway, moving on…

Pretty sure this button-up beauty *was* my dad’s. There’s no label, the fabric is so threadbare it’s practically see-through, and the sleeves are nearly completely ripped off in the back, but I love the colors! And it’s so soft!

Digging up this treasure chest was a great way to spend Mother’s Day. I’m going to wash the tees up and see if I can wear them. Although, I don’t see how the neck of the tie dye is even going to fit over my head. It’s tiny! If I can’t wear them, I am going to do something with them other than store them in a bin in the back of the closet. Finding these shirts, especially the ones I so vividly remember as “Mom” in my childhood, brings her back in different way than anything else of hers that I have. I feel like some sort of “shirt fabric/fabric of time” semi-serious, semi-jokey reference could be made here, but as the popular saying in my house when I was growing up goes, “Let’s not, and say we did.” Instead, I’ll end with one more of my favorite pictures for Mother’s Day.