The blue cashmere sweater gave me pause.

Which container? No, no way, not the one marked “thrift store donations.” Ah, my estate sale could be the answer.

But then I thought I’d keep it, even though I was too fat to cram myself into it.

It was a favorite, after all, and I knew, as I’d been saying for years, that I’d shed the 20-plus pounds I’d gained since 1976, when I purchased our family three-bedroom home on a picturesque one-block street in Altadena.

But now, I had decisions to make, important things to consider, like where we were going to live next.

Yet there I was piddling over whether to keep or abandon this soft baby-blue cashmere sweater that had been a major coordinating thread for so many of what I thought were eye-catching outfits.

I’d worn it to the celebration party the night the votes were counted and I was elected to serve on the Altadena Town Council.

It wasn’t just a sweater — it was a memory.

But with a lot of self-talk that snapped me back into reality, I tossed the damned thing into the donation bag as I sorted and boxed-up 40-plus years of stuff. It was one of many memories that were not going with me, one of many painful choices I had to make.

Now that we’re unpacked and settled into new living quarters in Las Vegas, I frequently ask my foster daughter, Brandi, who moved with me from Altadena, “Have you seen my … ?”

Of course her answer is always “No.”

But it goes back and forth, because there’s a bunch of her stuff/memories that were donated somewhere, sold at our estate sale or were picked up by the “Got Junk?” service.

“Oh, my Harry Potter collection should have never been left behind,” she often reflects.

I used to say; “I’m not going anywhere, I’m here forever; they gonna carry me outta 2580 La Fiesta Ave., feet first.”

Instead of being wheeled out by the coroner, standing tall, I left with the moving van.

I live somewhere else now, but Altadena will always be home.

Charles White Park, named in honor of the African American artist and Altadena resident, is a stone’s throw from La Fiesta Avenue. A hop, skip and a jump from there is the Bob Lucas Library and Literacy Center, named for the African American journalist and literacy advocate who, like White, was a member of our Northwest community.

It was the Altadena main library, though, that grabbed my attention long before I purchased a home and moved to La Fiesta with my brood of five kids.

The forever-reading daughter, who even read the ingredients on the breakfast cereal boxes, in high school convinced her teacher to add the library to his list of civic-focused places where students could volunteer and gain community service credits. She was still volunteering (without credits) after finishing high school.

“I loved that place and the staff,” she says to this day, and early on in the Eaton fire’s hours of confusion hesitatingly added, “I heard it burned down.”

It did not — and neither did the Lucas library branch — but it reminded me of when I served as an Altadena Library board trustee. How many times must I have worn my now-abandoned blue cashmere sweater to some of those meetings?

The giant trees on Christmas Tree Lane, where the library is located, also survived the Eaton fire’s nightmarish carnage. They still stand tall and proud, there on Santa Rosa Avenue.

Since we live a four-hour drive from “home” now, I’m not there, but I’m always there. I’m always making phone calls and texting.

A relative sent me an update the other day:

“Morning, I didn’t stop to take pictures, but I saw our little neighborhood Wednesday and the only homes standing are 2 blue houses. One on La Fiesta and one on the corner of Ventura and La Fiesta on the north/west corner. Should/ve left my color blue.”

It’s been five years since my baby blue cashmere sweater became a thrift store donation. I’m sure some fair damsel has bought it and has been struttin’ through the town in it. Blue projects calm and reliability.

Altadena will shine again. Altadena will glow again.

It always has, and it will again.

Shirlee Smith is a longtime Pasadena Star-News columnist.