Hats

Like most men, my dad was a hat guy. He collected hats and most of his hats had a story. After he’d read every single noteworthy book about WWII, I switched his default gift from books to hats. At least with this gift, I didn’t have to hear a retelling of the Battle of the Bulge paraphrased from some dead soldier’s diary. I could tell whether he liked it by seeing how often he wore it. Whenever we went somewhere new, we brought him back a hat, and we brought my mom a magnet. He’s got hats from Carlsbad Surf Shop, Glacier National Park, Disney, and others, along with hats he’d bought himself over the years, like his yellow Polo hat he wore often. Anytime he liked a hat I wore, I got him his own for a Christmas or birthday gift.

For decades, my brother and I fought to earn Dad’s allegiance to our baseball teams. My traitor brother is a Mets fan, and I am a devoted Yankee fan, so my dad also had his share of MLB hat paraphernalia. I got him a very cool Yankee hat for Christmas, with New York in big letters across the front, and he had worn it lately, which obviously means he liked me better than Greg.

My dad died on a Wednesday, 3 weeks ago today. On Thursday, the kids came to the house for the first time since he died. We were all in deep, frozen shock. The kids seemed more in touch with the reality of the situation, especially the younger two, Adelaide (8) and Leo (newly 5). In a desperate bid to comfort them, I told them to pick out one of his hats. Adelaide dashed upstairs and picked out his favorite, most worn, stained, yellow Ralph Lauren Polo hat. Leo picked an Asbury Park hat, I think because black and yellow on the hat are also the colors of his Batman Lego.

I didn’t pick one then; I looked at them and saw the one I’d gotten him for his birthday less than a month before. My dad was notoriously proud of his Irish heritage. His grandparents came from Ireland; he qualified for an Irish passport. One of the things he liked about my favorite show, The West Wing, was that President Bartlet was a Notre Dame graduate. After he said so, while I was watching an episode in the house, I went online and immediately bought him a Notre Dame Fighting Irish hat. He opened it the day before his last birthday, March 26, because I went to the city for Claire’s book event on March 27. I remember thinking, “God, maybe I shouldn’t skip his birthday; what if it’s his last one?” but I had thoughts like that all the time about everyone, especially him. He smiled when he pulled it out of the bag and thanked me, and then he wore it almost daily until he died 28 days later.

Now, the hat is still where he kept his collection.

It’s on top of a black box with his ashes.