My son came out of his bedroom closet, oblivious to the mess he’d just made, holding a grey hoodie. “Is this Walter’s?” he asked, because he still sometimes refers to himself in the third person.

“It was yours when you were younger,” I told him. “It’s too small for you now.”

I recognized the sweatshirt. It was one of the things I had picked out of a tub of hand-me-downs a friend gave me while I was pregnant. The sweatshirt is simple: grey, with a little sailboat emblem. My son is wearing it in one of my favorite pictures of him, collecting rocks on Mackinac Island just after his first birthday.

He’s two-and-a-half now, and it’s been a while since he was small enough to fit properly into the grey sweatshirt. But he squeezed himself into it anyway despite my halfhearted protest that it wasn’t going to fit him very well. The sleeves only made it halfway from his elbows to his wrists, but he declared that the sweatshirt fit. I let him leave it on. This wasn’t the first time he had tried to wear a hoodie or jacket that had been long outgrown, so I told him I would get him a new sweatshirt in his size so he could have one that fit.

I remember that day on Mackinac Island. It was a busy day on the island, and after lunch my sister and I took Walter on a little walk to get a break from the crowds. We found a rocky beach area where we could watch the ferries come and go, and we let Walter out of the stroller to toddle around and pick up rocks. The air was a little windier and chillier than I had expected, and I remember putting that sweatshirt on him to make sure he wasn’t cold. He could have spent hours on that beach, collecting rocks.

I sat down on the couch and opened my laptop to search a few online stores for toddler hoodies while it was on my mind. Walter wedged himself between me and the armrest, still wearing the too-small grey sweatshirt. Together we browsed a few styles and color options, and I asked him which one he liked.

“That one,” he said, pointing to the computer screen.

It was a red zip-up hoodie with line-drawn dinosaurs on it. He doesn’t have a particular interest in dinosaurs (he prefers electric guitars and power tools) so it wasn’t what I would have picked for him, but maybe he liked it because it was bold red and had pictures on it.

Unfortunately, the red dinosaur hoodie was out of stock in his size, and in the next size up, and in every other size. It was almost time to leave for my Saturday morning Bible study, so I closed the computer and promised to keep looking later.

One of the hard moments of Walter’s babyhood was packing away the first set of clothes he’d outgrown. The blue sloth sleeper, the first thing I’d purchased for him, when my friend and I decided our unborn baby boys needed matching outfits. The onesie that had belonged to my brother. The yellow striped romper with the sea turtle on it, which I had picked out because it was cute and went with the nursery decorations. The swaddle we got from the hospital. I folded all these things and meticulously packed them into a plastic tub, knowing he’d never wear them again.

After Bible study, I had the rare opportunity to go shopping by myself for a couple hours. Naturally I spent most of that time looking for summer clothes for the kids. I ended up in the baby and toddler section of Old Navy making a true effort to buy only what I came for (shorts) and not every adorable baby outfit on the rack. I took my time browsing, and I’m glad I did. On my second or third pass of the toddler boy section, I saw it: a rack of red hoodies. They had one in Walter’s size. Even without the dinosaur pattern, I felt like it was meant to be.

When I brought the red sweatshirt home to my son, his reaction was everything I hoped it would be. I told him I had gotten him something and pulled it out of the bag so he could see it. His face lit up and he actually said, “Wow!” as he reached for it. When bedtime came, I had to all but wrestle it away from him so I could wash it.

It’s impossible to know which little moments will become our favorite memories. When I pulled the little grey sweatshirt out of the hand-me-down tub, I didn’t know it would become significant in any way. Who knows if Walter will even remember or care about his red hoodie once he’s outgrown it. But I will remember how excited he was to get it, and the funny serendipity of finding it in the first place.