The story of the Lululemon jacket

When I got home tonight, my wife turned to my daughter and said, “Do you want to tell Daddy what happened today?” I could tell by the look on my daughter’s face, this wasn’t going to be a good story.

My daughter told me that today at school, someone took her Lululemon jacket. It was hanging on her hook outside her classroom and when the day ended, she looked for her jacket and it was gone.

She looked throughout the school, but there’s no sign of it and since it was taken off her hook by someone, it doesn’t seem likely we’ll ever see it again.

My daughter was very sad about this and worried that my wife and I were going to be mad at her. I was furious and still am, but certainly not at my daughter.

As angry as this news has made me, I’m probably more hurt than anything else. To understand my reaction, you probably need to know the whole story.

In April of this year, my daughter was turning nine. The girls on her cheerleading team plus a lot of the girls at her school were wearing anything and everything made by Lululemon. My daughter longed for even one item of clothing from this magical company.

Over and over she begged and pleaded, but the answer was always “no.” The stuff seemed far too expensive to us and since I had just started a new job, it seemed like money that we really didn’t have.

This was going to be a tough lesson for my daughter, but little did she realize, it was far tougher on us because it just flat out hurts to not be able to buy things for your children that they’d really like to have.

When it comes to money I’m usually the one who says “no” the longest and my wife is the one who says “maybe,” especially when it comes to the kids. Without telling anyone, my wife decided she would research used Lululemon jackets in our area and found a woman who had several in my daughter’s size, in good shape and for a fair price. She asked me what I thought, but I was surprised that used jackets could still be so expensive! She said it would be our birthday present to our daughter and after a couple of minutes, I said that if our daughter would want that to be her birthday present, we could find a way to do it.

When my daughter heard the plan she was overjoyed and didn’t care that this would be a used jacket. This would be the best birthday present she could ever dream of and wondered how soon could they go and see it?

I still thought it was ridiculous that used jackets would cost so much, but knew this was about giving my daughter something she thought was really special for her birthday. My daughter has never cared about “fitting in” but I knew it had to be hard for her to understand why she didn’t have what the other girls had and I was glad we were making this sacrifice.

My wife and daughter returned home with the jacket and the smile on my daughter’s face didn’t leave for several days. Her reaction made me forget about the money and how low I had felt that we hadn’t been able to provide the jacket sooner.

I guess the hardest part about today is that someone didn’t just take my daughter’s jacket - they took something that was very special to her. They took her birthday present and the giant smile that lasted for several days.

We’ve turned this into lessons about honesty and trust and hope that these are things she will always remember. But, for sure, I know she’s not going to forget her sadness. Not for a while.

And more than anything, that’s what really hurts.