I don’t remember much from the dwindling days of my last high school summer, aside from not wanting to think about whatever was coming next. I dreaded the prospect of college, dreaded the thought that all my friends were going to other schools, dreaded the possibility that I wasn’t enough, and dreaded the closing of a chapter whose familiar pages I could recite from memory for all my re-reading.

But I do remember this.

A couple weeks before move-in day, Mom informed me that she was taking me downtown to Morris’s, the men’s store in my hometown, so I could pick out a suit. I remember she brought it up out of nowhere, but the way she said it gave me the sense that there was some gravitas associated with the exercise.

It was just her and me. I remember driving us downtown (my mother was a reluctant, and, by all accounts, bad driver).

When we arrived Mom informed the sales clerk, an older gentleman, of our mission, and he took over from there. When he asked me for my thought or reaction, I’d look to her for guidance. She put it back on me, since I was going to be the one who lived with the decision. The one that stuck was a dark blue navy with a subtle purple pinstripe. I remember breaking into a grin when he pointed out the purple in the stripe. It felt like an adult decision. Maybe my first.

I remember him marking the cuffs and the sides of the jacket with chalk for alterations. That’s when I began to appreciate the gravitas of the occasion for myself, since every piece of clothing I’d acquired in my first 17 years was plucked off a rack close enough for jazz. I remember the clerk auditioning ties, and the three of us unanimously electing a floral print of deeps that winked knowingly at the purple in the pinstripe. The old clerk said it was a very young look. Mom approved.

When it was time for checkout, he rang us up, and I remember getting a lump in my throat when he announced the total. It was a big amount, well beyond an extravagance for us. I asked Mom if we wanted to maybe look at other options, but she didn’t flinch. “You need a good suit,” she said, closing the case.

When I got home, Dad gave me a crash course in handling my own Windsor. I wore a tie so infrequently I just let them hang tied and lonely in my closet up to that point. Within days, I was off to begin my next chapter.

I put that suit to good use through over the next four years … and beyond. Unfailingly, I always caught a compliment or two on my tie. Whenever I wore it I remember it feeling like armor. It wasn’t a small feeling in those years when doubt and dread always seemed to have the upper hand on me. Mom was right, I needed that suit for college.

For the record, it still hangs in my closet, though the armor doesn’t quite fit the way it used to.

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This past Thursday I accompanied Peter to Duquesne to cross a few things off his list before this week’s move-in. Picked up his parking pass, a laptop at the computer store, and his first bushel of books at the bookstore.

Before grabbing some dinner we made another stop.

“You guys look like you’re on a mission,” the woman behind the counter said.

“Dad says I need a suit for college,” he told her.

Peter put himself in Sara’s capable hands. She brought out options and colors.

After trying on a couple, he gravitated to a bright blue number with a paisley for the interior. “That’s pretty sweet,” he confessed. He asked me for my opinion. Told him it was totally his call, but nodded my approval.

When it came to ties, he singled out a flowered print that winked at the blue in the suit, and we reversed engineered the shirt selections to match.

When it was time to check out, I was reminded that the price of a good suit can still tempt one to a double-take. But I was taught many years ago that certain college equations call for a higher math, and didn’t flinch.

I am confident the suit will serve him well, and in different ways than mine served me. He doesn’t need it for armor. For 18 he has a pretty good sense of who he is. I’m grateful for that.

So here’s to next chapters.

And to old chapters worthy of an occasional re-read to find your place.