Since we went through that unemployment thing this fall and winter, I haven't bought the little angel any new clothes since the beginning of the school year. She has a penchant for wearing the same thing over and over, and lately she's been looking like Little Orphan Annie with holes in her leggings. All this forced me to do what I loathe doing, which is digging through all her clothes figuring out what to donate, what to give away and what to toss before I go buy her some leggings that don't look like they belong to the cast of Les Misérables.

While she was in the shower the other night, I attacked her dresser and closet. She walked in just as I was putting a purple shirt in the paper grocery sack filled with hand-me-down play clothes for the littler neighbor girl.

And she burst into tears.

???

"You can't give away the purple shirt," she wailed.

"But why not?"

"It's what I was wearing the day Petunia died."

And then I felt tears spring to my eyes, too.

"Well, then, of course we can't give it away. But it doesn't fit. Hmm."