My Mother’s Mink

The New York Times

One day my mom simply put the mink coat in a plastic bag, stuffed the bag into a box and shipped it to me. She lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., where she has no needof a calf-length fur in the eight weeks that pretend to be winter, and the mink had become something of a reprimand: Why did she no longer live the kind of life that required a fur coat?

Not an easy question to answer, so she sent it to me, to do with as I wished. Selling it was the obvious choice, but not the easy one. Mom’s coat is one of those things that mattered to my parents enough for them to assume it would matter to their kids; it seemed callous to dump the mink the moment it arrived.

I hung it away until a friend warned me that mink sheds in the summer heat. A day later it took up residence in Macy’s fur storage vault until the following winter, when I found a furrier who trafficked in used fur coats.

It was only four blocks from Macy’s to the furrier, but by the time I arrived I had relived most of the happy mink moments of my youth, snuggling against my mom in the midst of a Chicago winter, inhaling the crisp, cold, dry smell of a sea of minks on an outing to the symphony. How proud my dad was to go into debt to buy my mother that coat; how proud she was to wear it.

And yet here I was, striding down Broadway in a freezing rain, about to sell my birthright at surely a better return than Esau had realized. I felt such unexpected guilt. How could I be coldhearted enough turn my back on the past for cash?

Keepsake or millstone? The author and her mother's fur.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The furrier’s manner was that of the kindly gerontologist: He petted the pelts, examined the collar and fastenings, slid his hand between the lining and the fur and worked his way up from the hem to the armhole, at which point he smiled a weary, experienced smile. The leather on the inside of the sleeve was dried out. He saw 30 coats like this a week, he said, brought in by daughters like me. I should donate it and take a tax write-off. Or I could just wear it.

If I were in my 20s or tall, maybe I could achieve the necessary irony, wear it with insouciance, pull off a look. One inch shy of the average height of American women, I lack sufficient flair; I’d just feel silly. And then there’s the issue of wearing fur in the first place, even though I’m persuaded by the recycle-and-reuse argument about vintage furs. Still, I can’t see me in the coat. I pulled the Macy’s bag down over the coat’s shoulders and headed home, feeling a little defensive on its behalf. Never fun to see a family member rejected.

I hung it in the small room that was once a dressing room in my otherwise-studio apartment, and removed the plastic bag to let it breathe. I moved my jeans from the peg on its left and my jacket from the peg on its right, because a mink coat seems to demand that kind of space. Besides, I wanted to have to look at it every day, as a reminder that its fate was still unresolved.

And then I started to become irritated, as you might with any pushy relative who overstayed. Every time I reached for my industrial-strength down coat, I sensed the mink’s mocking presence, the implied, “No, really?” as I chose practicality over elegance. It took up space I did not have. As soon as winter passed, it would require another paid vacation in Macy’s cold storage.

Within a week, nostalgia had caved to pragmatism. This was not a revered family heirloom; this was merely an artifact I didn’t need or want. It wasn’t like my late dad’s sweater and ring, both of which I wear. It wasn’t even like my mom’s gray dress in the photo on my desk, which I would have worn until the wool disintegrated, had she not given it away before I could lay claim. A meaningful legacy is one that matters both to giver and to taker.

The mink doesn’t. Now I get it: The regret I felt on the way to the furrier was not over selling the coat but over having the coat to sell. I haven’t been able to stop time, and I miss the days when my mom wouldn’t let her teenage daughters come near that coat unless our hands were clean. I’m sad the mink era is over.

Before I donate it, I contemplate a victory lap, an homage to mom, in which I get dressed up and wear it someplace she would enjoy — a Broadway musical on a Saturday night, maybe, an evening that involves a cocktail and carefree laughter. After that, the mink is out the door. I have my memories and a couple of beloved keepsakes. I don’t need a souvenir.