Shoes to Fill

It's Mothers Day today. I have so many memories of my own mother as well as memories of being a mother and now a grandmother. It seems it all comes down to filling the shoes of another. My mother taught me so much about being a mother, a mother who put self aside time and time again, a good mother. I hope I have taught my daughter the same. We learn from example. But there is a strange thread here with the women of this family and it all has to do with shoes, not just the idiom of "filling her shoes" but literal shoes!

 I have a granddaughter that is in love with shoes - big shoes, little shoes, her shoes, my shoes-all shoes! I sometimes wonder what causes such fascination at such a young age for this common item. However, I do remember a time long ago when I would go to my parents closet, pull out their shoes and line them up beside my own. Next I would shove my hands in the shoe I imagined to be a person; a mommy shoe, a daddy shoe, a sister shoe or my own shoe. Oh such adventures those shoes would have as I clomped them about with my hands!

After my mom died we had the unthinkable task of cleaning out her closet. I remember going through each item carefully, one by one. They felt sacred. Sometimes I would pull the dress or the blouse in close to me before placing them in a box. When I finally got to the bottom of the closet I noticed she had so many pairs of shoes! I was equally surprised to find that many still had the price tags on them. But it wasn't long before I think I found the answer for my mothers collection of unworn shoes. It was buried in a story she had told me many years before she died.

My mother grew up a sharecroppers daughter deep in the red clay of Georgia. They were poor-holes in the floor poor - but she said she never felt really poverty stricken until it was time to go to school. Apparently there was a year when owning a pair of shoes was impossible. She told me that year was hard, hard on her feet but harder on her pride. I realize now that the shame she felt sunk down deep in her soul, deep enough to become a part of her. But rising up from that humiliation was a fierce determination that it would never happen again, to her, or to anyone she loved. Crazy as it may sound, I think this is why the women in this family love shoes! I'm convinced that certain emotions like shame are hard pressed onto our souls and passed down as easily as eye color or the length of your toes.

My daughter loves shoes. I love shoes, even my sisters love shoes and now I watch my granddaughter trudging down the hall wearing my shoes, or the princess shoes that hardly lasted a day before the jewels fell off. I hear her squeal "Shozzz". I can't help but think of my mother. The older I become, the more I understand her and the more I admire her. I don't know if I'll ever be able to fill her shoes. I'm not sure anyone can.  

mom loving life!