I just made a shirt that is very meaningful for me. The ideas/concepts for these shirts are flowing and I’m merely riding the wave.
Growing up, like a lot of nineties kids, Amanda and I were obsessed with the movie Heathers (turns out, I DID end up “having a brain tumor for breakfast”). The amount of times we watched it was easily in the hundreds. We would quote it in almost every conversation.
Our favorite quote was “Our love is God. Let’s go get a Slushie.” We just loved the marrying of the profound and the mundane. Of course, love is God. Why not celebrate with a Slushie?
As it turned out, ironically enough, the very last gift I ever gave Amanda was…you guessed it…a Slushie. She was in the hospital, and I was sitting next to her holding her hand and she said that the commercials on television for local restaurants were making her crave a sweet drink. I told her no way was I smuggling in a daiquiri. She laughed a little and asked, “How about a Slushie?” Neither of us gave it a second thought, and I went directly across the street to the local convenience store and bought her a large cherry Slushie.
I sat by her side, holding hands once again, while she sipped her drink. “Ahhhh,” she said, voice barely audible. A hand squeeze. Hard. A quiet “thank you.”
Deb washed her face with a warm cloth. I brushed out her matted hair and put it in a fishtail braid. We freshened up her bed and I got as close to her as I could, with my head in her lap. She silently and instinctually stroked my hair as she had done for over 30 years.
Our love. Our love WAS God. Our love IS God. Not just hers and mine. But you and yours. Everyone’s.
So, I made this shirt. It’s our quote, in her favorite color. The background image is a scan of a flowery twig I found in my yard. I made one for me, but I feel like I want to put it out there to the universe in her honor. If you were ever a fan of the shenanigans we would get ourselves into, you totally understand why I had to make this.
As we always said: Planet Amandifer, bitches. 