Tommy gave me the coat at some point after his diagnosis and a year before he died. When I was 12, I was handed down a brown jacket with elbow patches from Grandpa Hank– one rainy visit, I got a Helly Hansen slicker from my dad. So I guess there must be some kind of impulse felt by men to give jackets to their sons and grandsons. One time, toward the end of Tommy’s life, I was standing with him in the bedroom– the bedroom I had always considered my mom’s room, even after he’d lived there 30 years. We’re standing there, and he’s just so visibly weakened from surgery and chemo and radiation, and I mentioned a camping trip I was going to take in a couple weeks. He reached right into the closet and pulled out a red and black, Gore-Tex, North Face mountain jacket that had to have been from the 90s. He pushed the coat toward me. 
“Take this. It’s a good coat”
This was probably one of many surreal exchanges he’d been having with the people in his life. This thing that people do when they know they are going to die– they find loved ones to take their things, and if they are lucky they are able to match the perfect item with person. He knew he’d no longer need it– that it would be mesothelioma, not a snowstorm on a mountain that would get him, and he must have known that I’d need it more.  

– NR

Relationship:  unknown unknown