Death and Denim
In my mind, jeans are indestructible. But on my body, I find that they’re constantly riddled with holes.
The knees fray—“You’re the horse, Daddy!”—and the pockets tear—Why do they catch on every open cabinet?—and the bottoms of the legs turn threadbare because I guess I drag them through jagged, burning, iron-infused coal.
Anyway. Occasionally, begrudgingly, I need new jeans.
“What’s your size again?” my wife asks. “I’ll get them for you—or, some you can try on, at least.”
A kindness, perhaps. An embarrassment over how long I’d been wearing ragged jeans. Either way, she comes home with three distinct pairs. A nice-ish blue; a tight-fitting black; and, a casual, loose gray.
“This is what they had,” she says. “Try ‘em on. See what you think.”
I do try them on. And they all fit, from a certain point of view. One a little snug, but nice. Another a little casual but comfortable. The other—well, in the middle. The baby bear’s jeans.
The jeans sit in the corner of our room, waiting. “I don’t know which to return,” I say.
“Keep them all,” my wife says.
“Who gets three new pairs of jeans at once?” I reply, aghast. “Kings and queens.”
“People who need to wear pants,” my wife replies—or something to that effect.
And the jeans sit, staring.
Days pass. Then weeks. There’s an international trip on my horizon, and the jeans wonder if they’re coming. “No,” I say. “I don’t know which of you I’m keeping yet.” Or, something to that effect.
The suitcase is packed. Medication, passport—that sort of thing. Pants?
“Are you taking any of these jeans?”
“I’ll decide which I’m keeping when I get back,” I say.
My wife rolls her eyes.
Then, a dark thought comes over me: “What if the plane goes down? And these jeans are just sitting here? All you have to remember me by…”
She rolls her eyes again. “These jeans and literally everything else in the house.”
I continue down that dark tunnel. “You’ll have to return them,” I say. “Never worn.”
She shakes her head. “I’d give them to Goodwill,” she says. Doesn’t even miss a beat. My body’s not even cold yet—I imagine—and she’s given all my good pants away.
“That’s even worse!” I exclaim. “Here are pants my husband never wore—no one ever wore,” I say. “Better to pocket the $80,” I say. “To remember me by. Buy something for the girls.”
My wife rolls her eyes and throws the jeans at me.
I promise you, reader, this is a true story with accurate dialogue reconstructed to the best of my reckoning—which, arguably, is quite poor.
What’s the point? you rightly ask in reply.
Well, that’s just the thing: This is a true story that happened more than three years ago. A handful of gathered moments, mundane and unremarkable in their making.
Do I remember which trip I went on? Do I recall what country I visited sandwiched within the real thriller of this denim saga? I have a guess, but that detail is actually quite foggy.
No. Instead, I remember rather clearly this silly, somewhat morbid conversation with my wife. And there is not a doubt in my mind that those jeans would have been brought to Goodwill had my plane gone down.
Unworn. $80—or whatever they cost—lost.
This substack is about story scraps, and this story is exactly that: scraps of character, of meaning, of plot. We glimpse humor and priority and all the rest.
But most importantly, for me at least, I’m left to wonder why this bit of dialogue has remained lodged in my head all these years when a conversation I had yesterday has faded so drastically as to practically never have existed.
Is it the topic? Death and morbid planning? Is it the humor, some shared smile between me and my wife? Something in between?
Here’s what I invite you to do, having read this far: Reflect.
Is there a scene—an exchange of dialogue, a conversation—that on the surface seems unimportant and yet remains stuck in your memory? What is it? What was happening in that moment? Who was there?
Don’t spend time trying to divine meaning from this moment. Instead, ask yourself: What does this point to? What do I glimpse about myself? About others?
At the end of it all, this mundane, silly story is a happy memory for me. For all the talk of denim and death, it bubbles over with laughter and joy and love.
And I did keep all three pairs of jeans. Because I’m a denim king.
I write other stuff, too! Here’s a rundown of the latest:
National Catholic Reporter published my review and reflection on the finale of ‘Star Trek: Picard’: ‘Star Trek: Picard' reminds us why we ‘go boldly’.
My monthly column in IgnatianSpirituality.com is all about my favorite Mumford and Sons song (dated, I know): Eyes to Serve, Hands to Learn.
I wrote about one of the many excellent animated shorts in the second season of ‘Star Wars: Visions’ for Dorkside of the Force: How Star Wars Visions’ ‘Sith’ Balances the Force.
In my weekly series on Ignatian spirituality, “Now Discern This,” I wrote about my recent trip to Kenya.