Hand-Me-Downs

Samantha Schwanke

Hand-me-downs—Most people dread them. They mean old sweat stains and overall ill-fitting clothes that you feel obligated to wear because your grandma sent them. Most people just want their own, new items that are theirs and only theirs. I’ve always been perplexed by the idea of not wanting something that belonged to my older brother, except perhaps for the broken muffler my parents found in one of his dresser drawers. That didn’t go over well.

But out of the things that I did receive from him, my favorite items were his denim shorts. My mom made them from his jeans that became too short for him, cutting them off at the knee. But when even the shorts became too short for him, I would receive them. They were baggy, worn, and stained, but I would have it no other way. The best part was sticking my hands in the deep, lint infested pockets. They were warm, engulfing my hands in a chasm that held all of my treasures from the day: rocks, sticks, beanie babies, buttons, coins. They also had these loops on the sides that were supposed to hold hammers. I would always try to hook a hammer on mine, but it often ended in my shorts slouching awkwardly to one side, covering one of my dirt stained knees and leaving the other revealed like some sort of lone birthmark.

Their fit had benefits, though. I’ve always burned easily, so the more skin I kept covered in the summer, the better. Also, the loose legs allowed me to run freely. My bare feet would hit the wet, lush grass that smelled of summer, the smell of mowed grass, the humid air, the black pebbles of the hot neighborhood tar, the sticks of the woods—crisp, crunching, crushed.

Those shorts made me feel accepted and loved by my brother. I had always wanted to be one of the boys and tried my best by hiding in his shadow. Now, when I look at a picture of my brother’s smiling face, I can close my eyes and feel denim slapping against my legs, grass under my feet, and my brother throwing a baseball at me, the two of us fighting over sticks with our dog, the two of us racing up and down the cul-de-sac on our Razor scooters, the two of us riding bike to a nearby playground and the smell of hot plastic and the feeling of slimy, sweaty swings as we flew higher and higher into the summer sky.