Shopping for Dancing Shoes
The great use of life is to spend it for something
that will outlast it.
-
William James
Mom sat on the slightly worn floral sofa in the reception
room of the nursing home watching the door
like a sentinel standing guard. She was going shopping.
Anyway, that's what the nurse told her. Her silver-white
hair was set off by a pretty lavender pantsuit and on her
feet, a slightly worn pair of athletic shoes.
I smiled and kissed her on the cheek. "Come on, Mom,
we're going to the May Company to buy you a new pair of
shoes. Then we'll stop and get some of that Chinese food
you love. Okay?"
She stood up and smoothed her outfit. I marveled at
how erect she was for a woman nearly ninety. "New
shoes. Oh, boy." Then she looked at me with confusion
mirrored in her kind hazel eyes. "By the way, you're a
pretty young lady. Do I know you?"
She clutched a small leather handbag that contained
Grandma's External Hard Drive as my son called it . . . a
book my sister and I created to help her remember who
people were and why she lived at the nursing home.
"I can't forget my purse, you know. It has all my important
information." She took the book out and looked
through it. She read in a clear voice, "‘My name is Rosetta
Lachman, and I moved here after I had mini strokes.' See,"
she said, "that's what I mean. Important information.
You're a pretty young lady. Do I know you?" There it was
again, reminding me that I was the adult now, and she
was the child.
I took her arm, and as we walked to the car, I said,
"Actually, you do know me. I'm your daughter, and I love
you very much. You have another daughter who lives in
Alaska."
"How lucky. Two pretty daughters. What do you know."
She settled into the car, and we drove
the short distance to the shopping center.
Her attention span was growing very short
these days, so I knew it had to be a quick excursion.
Not like in the old days, when we would
spend a whole day looking for great bargains,
trying on clothes and shoes for hours, and
then packing up our purchases and heading
for the Chinese restaurant. I felt a little catch in my throat.
Once I settled her into a chair in the shoe department,
she chatted away with the clerk. Since he didn't know her,
he had no idea that mini strokes had robbed this charming
woman of her memory. He was very gentle as he
slipped various styles of shoes on her fragile feet. She
would stand for a moment, walk around a bit and try on
the next pair, thanking him each time for being so helpful.
"She's such a sweet lady," he said to me. "How old is
your mom?"
"She'll be ninety next month," I said, taking her hand in
mine and patting it.
"Wow. I thought she was in her seventies. Ninety.
Wow." He prepared to take her selection to the desk to
ring it up.
"Young man," she said in a voice that belied her age, "I
like those shoes, but how am I going to dance in them?
When they play that rock and roll music, I just have to
dance."
He smiled broadly and removed the shoes from
the box. Then he put them on for her and
took her around in a dance position.
"Let's just try them out, okay?"
So Mom and the young man
danced to silent music as he carefully
led her through some simple
steps in the shoe department of
the May Company. She smiled up
at him. "Thank you, young man.
These will do just fine."
I could feel tears welling in my
eyes as I said, "Are you ready for
that Chinese food?"
"I sure am. You're a pretty
young lady. Do I know you?"
That was the last time I was able to take Mom out shopping,
and it will stay with me forever. A few months later,
she broke her hip and never danced again. She's ninetysix
now and confined to a wheelchair, but she still has her
"dancing shoes."
-Morgan St. James
|
