New Boots
I saw the small,
handwritten ”Estate Sale” sign hanging crookedly on a neighbor’s fence Sunday
as I drove past. There were a few
articles of clothing hung on the fence, too.
“I would like to walk down there and check that sale out,” I thought,
and I also hoped it was a generic use of the term “Estate Sale”, meaning “we
are selling some of our things because we just have too much” and not a “the
owners of this home and have died and we are cleaning it out forever”.
Late in the afternoon
David and I walked to the sale, only about 5 houses down from ours. As we entered
the yard, I saw it was FULL of women’s shoes.
There were bed sheets laid out on the ground and shoe upon shoe was
displayed. Two African American women
stood outdoors – one trying on a shoe. “Wow!”
I said, “Someone sure loves shoes!”. “They
were my mom’s”, answered one of the women.
“And yes, she sure did love shoes.
There are lots more than these! We
took some, and there is a big bin FULL of them also. And handbags – look at all of the handbags.” Oh she was right – there were lots and lots
of handbags, too. “Did your mother pass
away?” I asked – I had to really. “Yes,
she did,” was the sad reply.
I offered my condolences,
then smiled remembering my sisters and I going through our mom’s shoes almost
exactly ten years ago. I was glad to
have something to share with this woman – our mothers and their love of
footwear. I told the women how I was the
lucky sister, the only one with the same size feet as our shoe loving
mother. How it was rather like
Cinderella with my sisters trying to squish their feet into shoes that were
just plain too small. She smiled and
said the same was true with her family and the shoes. Maybe it’s like that in all families?
Her mom’s shoe collection
ranged from 7.5 to 8.5. “Oh, rats. I am a 6.5,” I told them. The deceased woman’s daughter smiled in understanding,
but her friend was not to be deterred. We
were having a good conversation and she was going to get me some shoes to try
on! “How about these??” she asked as she
handed me a pair of faux-denim bootie shoes with very high narrow heels. “These look like they might fit you! Try them!”.
So of course I obliged. And what
do you know – they did sort of fit! I teetered
around the front yard a bit modeling them.
“Gosh, it looks like they have never been worn,” I said. (There was even a “Made in China” sticker
still on the bottom of one.) “Yes, they
may not have been,” replied the daughter.
Those shoes were so NOT me – they were the wrong size, far too high of a
heel, and just not my style at all. Yet,
I smiled and said, “I need these. Can you
hold them for me while I look around?”. I
knew I wanted to buy something. Not that
I needed anything, but I remembered the feeling of clearing out, of being
overwhelmed, of wishing things could have a use and continue living
somehow. So those shoes would be my
small contribution to helping with the healing.
I changed back into my
shoes and talked a bit more before heading into the house, which the daughter
had explained would be sold. As I walked
in the front door I saw three ladies using American Sign Language. “Are you Deaf?” I signed. Why yes they were. “Do you LIVE HERE?” I signed. Again, yes one did, and she had lived there since
1994. “AND I HAVE NEVER MET YOU???? I live right on the corner. I am your neighbor!”. Oh my!
I had no idea we had a Deaf neighbor.
She was the sister of the woman I met outside, another daughter of the deceased
woman. I talked and talked to her and
her friends. None of us could believe
that we lived so close and had never met.
I explained that we had met her
mother one time when we were giving away peaches from our tree and her mom was
out on the front porch and we gave her some.
David came by after a
while and told me there was a man, maybe the father?, who seemed ill, possibly
comatose, in the other room. Eventually I
made my way to the kitchen and there he was – an elderly black man who I assumed
was their father. He was sitting in a
type of wheel chair but had a cane nearby.
It was almost 4 pm but he was still in his pajamas. And he looked unwell. The Deaf woman, whose name I learned was
Lisa, said this was her grandfather. “Not
your dad?” I asked. “NO!” she explained,
“My daddy left my mamma when she was pregnant with me. Never came back.” She said that her grandfather was in his 80s
and diabetic. They had tested his blood
sugar and it was very, very low and she thought they would have to take him to
the hospital soon. She had given him a
small orange juice box to drink to try and help bring his levels up. I said hello to him and he replied. I smiled at him and talked to him, asking his
name. “Steve”. “Hey, I was supposed to be Steven! So were my sisters! I was the last chance and I came out a girl,
too. They gave up after me.” That made him light up and smile a bit. I kept encouraging him to drink his orange
juice and asked if he had eaten lunch. He
told me he had a donut for lunch. Not the
best meal for a diabetic! I saw boxes of
pizza on the countertop and encouraged him to try and eat a slice, which he
did. So I sat and talked with him as he
ate pizza and drank juice. Turns out he
was upset – nervous about having to move to a nursing home. He said they had found him one but now the
home wouldn’t take him. Poor fellow. He seemed so very sweet and gentle. Made me miss my grandpas and David’s
dad.
I went back and forth
talking to him and Lisa, the Deaf woman.
They were both very fun to talk with.
Now, you need to know a bit about Deaf Culture to understand
something. Culturally Deaf people are
often very, very blunt. They are not
blunt to be rude – it is just how many of them are. So during the conversation about diabetes and
her mother’s death, Lisa explained that her mom was also diabetic, as was
she. And that her mom died at only 69
years old and had been diabetic, had a bad heart, dementia, and had had BOTH
FEET AMPUTATED.
No feet??? And with all of those SHOES? “But she loved shoes,” I signed. “Oh yes!
Had hundreds and hundreds of pairs!” Lisa replied. “Did she, ummm, wear shoes even after she
lost her feet?” I signed trying to understand yet be diplomatic. “Oh no – she couldn’t wear shoes after that.”
So THAT is why the faux
denim booties looked unused. They had
never been worn. Had she bought them
right before she got sick and they amputated her feet? Had they been sitting in a closet for years?
And this is how I ended up
with a pair of shoes. Shoes from a dead
woman. Shoes from a neighbor. Shoes from a woman with no feet. Shoes that I will never wear.
Shoes. A part of the healing process.
Comments