Of denim patches and misguided sentimentalities

Photo by Maude Frédérique Lavoie on Unsplash

When I was in grade 3 or 4, I remember performing in a group play where I was a bee. The night before the performance, my mother came home with the materials for my costume. I watched in awe as she magically conjured wings and antenna out of cartons. When I woke up the next morning, my wings were waiting for me. I tried it on and felt like a real honey bee, minus the stinger.

Let's just say my mother's cut-out wings helped me soar through my performance.

It might not be a big deal, but to me it was special. It was the earliest memory I had of my mother creating something that connected with me on a deeper level. The bee costume stayed as long as it had in the closet until my mother found and threw it away.

Growing up with big inner thighs, my pants have always taken the brunt of the deformities of my lower extremity. After months of wearing, thigh rub holes would appear on it. My mother would mend these by patching them. And like magic, the holes would disappear.

I only had a few pair of jeans back then, all of which had been touched by my mother's crafty hands.

When I would leave for work, I would pass by her seated outside our house, hunched over, fixing a pair of my holed pants.

When I was able to afford expensive and durable pants, I got rid of those that were unwearable, and kept only two pairs of my patched pants.

When my mother died, it became impossible for me to throw the only tangible things that connected me to her. To me, these patches were keepsakes from my mother. These were the embodiments of her love, strength, grace, and creativity. Keeping them meant holding on to my mother---to her essence and humanity. 

I threw my old pants and bought new pairs, but still, I kept the patched ones at the bottom of the stack for a long time until we had to move.

It took me a while to confront my misguided sentimentality. As painful as it was to lose my mother, reducing her memory to a tangible object emotionally accessible to me became an unhealthy way of navigating through my grief.  So, for the last time, I took out the pants from the bottom of my organizer and bid goodbye, not to my mother, but to the patches that have held my pants and life together.

What I learned from the experience was this: There is nothing more powerful and tangible that connects us to our departed loved ones than ourselves---the very people whose lives they've touched, with them being in it and even long after they left. And as long as we live, they will forever live in our hearts and minds.

"When the mind forgets, the heart remembers."