The Vest at the Center of the Venn Diagram

March 26, 2026

When John died, I moved his stuff along. I didn’t want to be a hoarder; useful things should be in use, I told myself, and his clothes and gear were useful. Alder was two - the thought of holding onto things for 15 years in case a hypothetical 17-year-old Alder wanted them felt a bit absurd.

But somehow, the years elapsed and a little over a year ago Alder turned 17. I sensed a growing interest in John and began pulling out photos. He would peer at them, and I would tell the story of the photo, who was in it, what antics he was up to.

But it was the gear that caught his eye. He’d squint and say, “That jacket’s fire.”

A person’s spiritual essence may not reside in the tangible detritus of their life, but quality outerwear is no trifling matter in Alaska. “I can’t believe you gave his stuff away,” Alder said.

I began asking around. My sister-in-law Julie had saved the things I gave her. Last summer she took Alder down to her basement and produced a perfectly preserved pile of John’s clothes and gave it to him. A 1997 Klondike Road Relay shirt quickly became his second skin.

I had held onto John’s North Face vest longer than most things, but one year I threw it into the mix of our annual Old Friends Gift Swap, unable to resist the clamor I suspected would ensue. Our friend Rorie, who knew the vest’s origin story, fought hard for it, and last month he gifted it to Alder.

John had liked the vest - it was comfortable and warm - but the THE NORTH FACE lettering embroidered in blocky white thread against the black vest irritated him.

“I don’t want to be a walking billboard,” he said. “It might as well say BUY NORTH FACE.”

A few weeks later, he pulled the vest out of a bag with a sly grin and dangled it in my face.

“What,” I said.

“Look!”

I looked.

I didn’t notice anything. Then he pointed to the lettering: BUY NORTH FACE.

He had gone to a tailor with instructions to remove the letters T-H-E and replace them in identical style with the letters B-U-Y.

“And you paid what for that?”

He loved that vest, its commentary on capitalism, consumer culture, and our unwitting participation as pawns. Or something like that. For the most part no one else noticed the substituted word or if they did, it registered as mild confusion. John was all the more amused. The subtlety of the gag was a feature, not a bug, and he didn’t care who got it.

Two weeks ago the Freeride World Tour came to Haines, Alaska. The Tour features six competitions across the globe for the world’s top freeskiers and snowboarders. Each event involves helicopter-supported runs down long untracked mountains. Competitors are judged on “line selection” - what route they choose - and style and finesse. They don’t have to stay upright but they’re disqualified if they yard-sale.

It’s a niche sport, and Alder and his friends are among the tour’s cultlike following. A small posse convened in our living room to watch the Haines event after school while I shoved leftover cupcakes and popcorn and carrot sticks in front of them. I watched on and off, as entertained by their yelling and laughter as by the skiers hurling themselves over cliffs in the Chilkat Mountains. Alder and his friends had some complicated small-dollar betting scheme going. They were invested.

I’m not sure if it’s always this way, but a spectacular number of competitors wiped out, some terrifyingly, such as the guy who tomahawked 10 times (?) before coming to a halt and waving dizzily to signal he was ok. I am a notoriously nervous spectator, and I almost had to cover my eyes. I found it miraculous any of them survived the competition intact, much less all of them.

Two days later I saw a post on Juneau’s all-purpose Facebook bulletin board asking for rides from the ferry terminal to town for “about 30 people” associated with the Freeride tour. I messaged saying my 18-year-old could pick up one or two people, and was told to just send him to meet the incoming boat from Haines with a sign saying “Freeride.” Apparently the best freeskiers in the world have to hitch rides from teenagers while on the tour.

Alder and his friend Bay took Bay’s family’s beater van out to the ferry terminal and came back three hours later giggling. They had picked up Toby Rafford and Ben Richards, ranked 1 and 2 overall in the men’s ski competition, along with the top women’s snowboarder and a tour videographer. Alder had asked if they were hungry and stopped at McDonalds, where the six of them ate burgers and shot the shit.

“Did you ask them –”

“Mom, we were just hanging out. I wasn’t interviewing them.”

Toby and Ben gave Bay and Alder their race bibs. I felt like mother of the year.

They took a few photos. Ben, who is sponsored by North Face, is in his North Face jacket. Alder is in his Buy North Face vest. Did anyone notice, I asked?

Alder shrugged. “Someone was like, oh yours says Buy North Face.” Alder offered no explanation.

I like to think John, who is made of stardust and memory, is cackling away somewhere in the deepest recesses of his ethereal realm. Once again, he was right. Whatever he paid, it was worth it. Along with that vest he bequeathed his son a sideways sense of humor. A sense of delight so interior and personal no one else needs to understand.

The vest was always meant for Alder. The joke was never just John’s, it was a communion between him and the son he barely knew, their lives overlapping briefly, linked by long white strands of embroidery thread. At the thin center of the Venn diagram that father and son inhabit together sits a fleece vest, a keen sense of irony, and the small persistent tug of a more perfect world.