It all started with my colon.

In 2019 I scheduled an overdue colonoscopy thanks to a much younger coworker named Beth who prompted me. Turns out there was a cancerous tumor in my intestines.

I told my friend Burchie that I would be in the hospital five days after getting the tumor removed until it was certain my digestive system was working again in its restructured state.

“Well, I’m going to get you a pretty nightgown and robe,” she said sitting straight up in her chair, trying to assert control over something nobody could control.

I reminded her I’d have an IV and a tie-in-the-back hospital gown.

“Then I’ll get you a bed jacket,” she quickly followed. We laughed over an Andy Griffith episode when Aunt Bee eyes a bed jacket in a shop window. Andy ends up trading his luckiest fishing rod to the mayor who bought the bed jacket for his wife in order to procure the bed jacket for Aunt Bee. It was the only time in recent memory I’d seen a bed jacket.

My Bed Jacket Story

I told Burchie I doubted anyone still sold bed jackets. She once again countered saying she’d find the local version of Aunt Bee and make an offer on hers.

The night before my surgery, Burchie knocked on the door to deliver a beautifully wrapped box, saying it was the last thing I needed, but just a reminder that I am loved.

I attempted to explain how funny this bed jacket was to the two of my three children who were home at the time.

Wade, my youngest, was 15. He’s always cold and loves a good blanket — or two, or four. He tried on the bed jacket and declared it the coziest thing he’s ever worn and vowed to never take it off.

The bed jacket accompanied me to the hospital where the tumor was removed and samples of my lymph nodes discerned the cancer had not spread. I got off very easily with no further treatment and a bed jacket as well.

Thank you for sharing in my creative pursuit and just another way to show love.

Take care,

Katherine

I wore my bed jacket over my nightgown or pajamas almost every night or morning and for all major holidays with the family from then on.

As I Air-B-n-B-surfed through Chapel Hill garage apartments and basement flats while teaching and getting my master’s, I often felt lonely with none of my own furnishings or family around. For three years, the bed jacket was the first thing I put on each morning and night, reminding me I am loved.

Last summer my daughter Charlotte and I were at The Frick museum in New York where we saw this painting in the “Vermeer’s Love Letters” exhibition. I said I was buying a print and framing it along with and a photo of Aunt Bee’s bed jacket to hang side by side. Charlotte joked that I should curate my own collection of bed jacket art for the Met’s Costume Institute. We laughed.

Back in Raleigh I recounted our exchange to a friend who said: “What you should do is start VintageBedJackets.com.”

And so I did.