A nickle a shoe.

I'm a hospice volunteer in my spare time. I tell you this not so you think more highly of me, but because my story comes from one of my patients. I will call him George to protect his anonymity. He had some sort of dementia and a failing heart which affected his breathing because he was on oxygen, but did not affect his loving nature. In fact the only time I saw him really get angry was the last day I saw him alive. That was a Thursday and he died the next Monday. But let me backtrack just a little bit to the week before that Thursday. I usually went to his home Thursdays from 11:00 - 3:00 and then headed from there to work. Towards the end he was heavily sedated and slept most of the time. They had a recliner in the same room in which I would usually take a nap while he was sleeping. His wife Joan (not her real name) would go out and shop for groceries or have lunch with a friend. She only left the house on Thursdays and and then again on Saturdays to go to Mass. So while she was gone I would keep him company or sleep. Not a bad deal.

So back to the penultimate Thursday. He was not sleepy at all and in fact since he had not left the bed not to mention the house in over a month, I think he had some form of cabin fever. So instead of napping I spent most of the afternoon looking for his wallet. He wanted to get out of the house and needed some flash money. Wishful thinking to be sure, but I humored him and pretended to look, under the bed under the chair, in others rooms in the house. But did not find his wallet. Flash forward to the next week. This time he is simply looking for his shoes. And he was angry. Where the f*ck are my shoes? he wanted to know. I don't know I kept repeating. I couldn't find any shoes and the next Monday he was gone. Of course my not finding his shoes had no bearing on whether or not he was going to live or die. Or did it.

In her book, The year of magical thinking Author Joan Didion recalls the year after her husband John Gregory Dunne died. She recalls in the book that she did not know what to do with John's shoes because what if he came back? We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. This was the magical part of her thinking to be sure but leads to a larger question. How important are your shoes?

I was at the Chicago Auto Show last month and there was a shoe shine guy there just looking at the people at they passed by. He was not looking at there hats or even their coat and ties, instead he was looking at there shoes. When he saw my shoes, the same ones I wore to my sisters wedding seven years earlier he immediately tracked me down and offered me a $5 shoe shine. At first I balked because I really only had three dollars to spend on anything but food. So I ate first (A big mac, Coke and Fries), then he saw me again as I was leaving the McDonald's and just to let you know, I'm a sucker for a hard sell, so I said yes, but that I only had three dollars. Well it had been a slow day for him, well past noon and I was his first customer. So he said he would shine my shoes for three dollar, just to kill the boredom I'm sure. The minute I sat in the chair three thoughts immediately flooded my mind. The first was of sweet Polly Purebred, the love interest of Underdog(the humble shoe shine boy) and how she was a reporter and how Clark Kent(Super Man) was a reporter and how Peter Parker(Spider Man) was a photographer for a newspaper. That was just a fleeting thought however.



Next I thought of the Johnny Cash song Get rhythm when you get the blues: about a hard working shoe shine boy. A portion goes like this:

Little shoeshine boy never gets low down
But he's got the dirtiest job in town
Bendin' low at the peoples' feet
On the windy corner of the dirty street
Well, I asked him while he shined my shoes
How'd he keep from gettin' the blues
He grinned as he raised his little head
Popped a shoeshine rag and then he said

Get rhythm when you get the blues
Hey, get rhythm when you get the blues
It only costs a dime, just a nickel a shoe
Does a million dollars worth of good for you
Get rhythm when you get the blues

The third thought I had was of George and his missing shoes. I though about all the shoes and even boots(WW2) he had worn in his life and all the good he had done in those shoes and the family he left behind and the footprint his life had made. I was on the verge of tears when I had a final thought. I made a solemn promise to myself that whenever I put on a pair of shoes that I would do my best. And I put the same challenge to everyone to make the same vow that whenever you slip on a loafer, strap up a pump or lace up your sneakers to do your best because someday soon you might just say Where the f*ck are my shoes and the only answer you will get back is I don't know.