You are cleaning out your grandfather’s closet when you find an old shoe. Tell a story about it…

WHAT REALLY MATTERS

©2003 by Robin Flinchum

I came across the shoe unexpectedly this morning as I was cleaning out my grandfather’s closet. Since he moved into the retirement home last week, I’ve been trying to get his house in shape to put on the market. It’s an older house, smallish and not very stylish with green aluminum siding and yellowed linoleum on the kitchen floor. I don’t expect he’ll get much for it, but maybe enough to pay the bills at this new place.

Of course, he didn’t want to go to the new place. On the morning I came to get him he was waiting with what’s left of his hair wet-combed to his forehead and a clean shirt tucked into his trousers, as if he wanted me to see how perfectly capable he was of caring for himself. And it’s true, most of the time. But his diabetes is getting worse and I can’t be here night and day to make sure he’s alright.

So I took him to the home, left him there and slunk away like I’d just abandoned a puppy at the pound. I call him every day or so and make small talk in a bright and cheery voice but I never ask him how he’s doing because I’m afraid of what he’ll say.

“Couldn’t you bring me home now, honey?”

No, I couldn’t. I live alone, I work long hours. I don’t even have a gold fish, that’s how not responsible I can be for another living being. Besides, to tell the truth I hardly know Grampa. I was raised by my father and his second wife three thousand miles away from this half of my family with only short, sporadic visits over the years and it was just a coincidental company transfer that brought me here.

But I do remember that shoe. There’s only one—one shiny, black patent leather shoe with a rather high heel and a stylish tassel. It’s old but well cared for. Polished to a shine, unlike the loafers he wears around most of the time. I’ve never seen him wear this shoe, of course, because there’s only one. But I have seen him polish it.

I asked him once where the other shoe was and he smiled. “A long way away from here,” he said. “Maybe it’s fish food now, swallowed and gone forever.” Grampa has a kind sort of face with soft eyes, and whatever he said seemed like a benediction to me when I was small, so I never doubted his word. I accepted that a shoe could somehow also be fish food and incorporated that into the catalog of our family legends, along with my mother’s death in a freak Ferris wheel accident. But I never actually thought much about what it might mean.

I took the shoe down from the shelf and studied it closely for the first time ever. Before today it had been like an artifact in a museum but now, as if I had managed to sneak in after hours, I could touch it and pick it up and wonder about it while no one was looking. I tested the sole to see if it would give, smushed the toe to see if it were hard or soft. And I heard a paper crinkle inside.

It was two sheets of faded notebook paper covered in large writing and folded over and over into a small square that just fit into the toe. When I straightened it out I recognized my mother’s handwriting. It was an essay, probably something she’d written in high school. In red pen, a large B- was scrawled over the top left corner. ‘Structure needs work but it has heart,’ some long ago teacher had written.

‘My Father’s Shoe’ was the title and it gave me a funny sense of warmth in my chest, knowing that some time my mother had thought and wondered about this very shoe, the same way I was doing now.

Once when my father was very young his family was very rich, my mother had written. That surprised me, as no one had ever mentioned rich relations to me. He lived in Russia with his father and mother and two brothers. They were related to the royal family and lived in a mansion and had good horses and fancy clothes. My father had a lot of good food to eat, including ice cream and chocolate. His parents let him drink wine at the dinner table.

But then there was a revolution and my father’s family was thrown out of their mansion. The peasants did not think that some people should have so much while others had nothing. My father said sometimes while he was eating ice cream there were other children starving to death in the cold, but he did not know this then. His family moved to a much smaller house but my father insisted on bringing his good clothes with him. He was very vain as a young man.

Even though my father’s family moved into a smaller house, the peasants did not think that was enough punishment for them having lived so well for so long. They decided that my grandfather should die and this scared my father and everyone in his family very much. They decided to run away to America and start their lives over again. My grandmother told my father that he must dress very plainly for the voyage and take nothing with him that was not useful. But my father insisted on bringing his best suit of clothes and the shiny shoes that went with them. He wrapped these up in a plain satchel and told his mother that he was carrying a blanket.

On the boat it was cold and no one had enough room or enough food to eat. My father had to sleep up on the deck and the first night his mother opened the satchel to get out the blanket. When she found his clothes she sat right down and cried. My grandfather, when he saw the clothes, became very angry and picked them up and threw them into the ocean. The only thing that didn’t go overboard was one shoe that stayed hidden in the bottom of the satchel.

My father kept the shoe, and hid it from his parents. At that time, he said he kept it to remind him of all that he had lost and to make him want to get back all of those riches. He promised himself he would have fancy shoes and clothes again one day.

My father always kept that shoe but as he grew up and struggled to make a living in America he began to forget what that shoe used to mean to him. His father went to work in a steel mill and his mother learned to do laundry and to cook and clean and even to work for other rich families. My father worked in the rail yard shoveling coal. He said it was very hard at first but after a while they all discovered something they had never known before—how important each member was to the survival of the family and how, by working together, they could make a comfortable living for themselves and all of the boys were able to go to school.

My father’s family invested in a stationary store with the money they were able to save and he and my uncles still run it today and that is where I bought this paper I am writing on now.

My father still has his old shoe. He says he still takes it out and looks at it to remind him of what he really wants in life. But it’s different now than when he was a young man. Now, he says, all he wants is the love of his family and the trust and reliance that keeps a family together. He says family is what really matters and that if there is enough love, nothing is impossible. He wouldn’t trade that for all the shiny shoes in the world.

The End.

And that was the secret of the shoe.

I folded the pages up, following the old creases carefully, and tucked the paper back into the toe of that shoe. Then I got my coat and headed out the door, figuring I had just about enough time to check Grampa out of that place and get him home in time for dinner.

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