BOSTON (CBS) –It’s not your average plea for the safe return of a lost sweatshirt.
Kathy Halpin took to Facebook to ask if anyone had seen her son’s Patriots sweatshirt, which was a gift from his grandfather before he died exactly 16 years ago.
“He’s worn it and held it tight during the Pats games and post season games since he was 10 years old and last night someone took it,” she wrote.
Halpin said the sweatshirt had been her father’s. He died in January 2002, three weeks before the Patriots won their first Super Bowl.
A picture of a missing Patriots sweatshirt that holds sentimental value for one family (Photo Courtesy: Kathy Morin Halpin | Facebook)
“My father was able to watch one of the playoff games and I can picture him in his hospital bed and my son up on the bed with him. He loved the Patriots,” Kathy told WBZ-TV.
As D.J. recalled, “I was really connected to my grandfather. He was my first best friend.”
D.J. Halpin with his grandfather (WBZ-TV)
Out of superstition and tradition, D.J., 26, still wears the sweatshirt for every game and has seen the Patriots win four Super Bowls since.
“Even in the Super Bowl [last year], when we were down, my friends go, ‘Why don’t you have the sweatshirt? Where is it?’ and I go, ‘It’s in my car, I don’t know why I don’t have it in here!'” D.J. said.
After returning with the sweatshirt, “we started getting touchdowns, coming back, and then all of the sudden we won the Super Bowl. I’m not saying that was the reason why–but that was the reason why,” he joked.
D.J. Halpin and his family look at old photos (WBZ-TV)
“I can still picture my son as a 10-year-old little boy, sitting on the floor, wearing the sweatshirt, watching Vinatieri kick the field goal,” said Kathy. “And from that day on, it was his.”
D.J. was at Howl at the Moon at Patriots Place when he realized the sweatshirt was lost around 8 p.m. on Saturday.
Kathy believes someone must have taken it by accident. She asked if you have the sweatshirt to return it to Howl at the Moon, no questions asked.
“I just didn’t want somebody to look at it and say ‘Oh, this is just an old sweatshirt.’ Because it’s more than a sweatshirt,” Kathy said.