Pinky and I have been doing a tiny amount of anticipatory weeding at our mother's house - paint stained sweat pants with no elastic go in the garbage, clean, functional sweat pants to the thrift shop. Last weekend, we found a neatly packed box of summer shoes: flipflops, sandals, espadrilles. After I took a picture, we shoved the box back under the bed.
Because somehow, shoes that are never going to be worn again are ineffably sad.
*With apologies to Jodifur.
21 comments:
Except for a couple of those, they mostly look as though they've never been worn before, either.
I know it's hard, but now's the time to get those sandals to the thrift shop, so they can go to the beach and the garden and the park...
With my grandmother last year, it was gloves. Pairs and pairs of them. I've been wearing one of those pairs this winter since somehow losing my gloves, and the seams have split along the fingers. Still can't bear to throw them out.
Maggie, Liz here = if there is anything I can at all, let me know. Upstate getaway? FS night?
Maybe you can wear a pair of these to pad about the house?
Liz W
It is sad. And I do always wonder about the desirability of donating shoes.
There is a point where some stuff just has to be seen as stuff. And yes, that's very sad.
no apologies necessary. Thanks for the link!
Overwhelmingly sad. So been there.
She's so very organized.
Yes, sad.
Found as a bargain at a thrift store may make quite a few women happy. But yes, for now, it's a sadness. It's good you are getting a start on this, though.
oh.
(((you)))
there are some cute ones in there, too :(
I know. The ineffably sad shoes. It's hard to handle. I need to find some country of barefoot people to take my shoes because I can't handle this.
Quite sad.
{{hugs}}
I'm so sorry. Hasn't it been about a year now for you? I say stop the weeding. My Moms house has been sitting unweeded for almost a year and I see no reason to go through that.
I bet her toenails were always a lovely shade of pink. At least I imagine them that way.
I am sorry it is so sad for you.
that IS sad.... even sadder than finding a shoe box filled with sweet & low.
Very sad.
What if you took the shoes on a long drive? A long drive along the highway, perhaps visiting some of the places you and your Mum loved best? And you took every exit? And at the end of the ramp, you surreptitiously dropped one shoe on the side of the road? For miles and miles and miles...
Imagine the stories you would inspire, the wondering, the delight when someone found two shoes, a matched pair, in two places. You could photograph this Great Shoe Migration, write anonymously to the local paper and wonder, in print, why these shoes felt the need to wander...these nomadic shoes, so wonderful, where were they going? Why didn't they stick together, as everyone knows one should do in the Big City?
Or keep a few pair in the dress-up box, because little girls love to try on big shoes...
Shade and Sweetwater,
K (who hopes you don't find it too arduous a task, this sorting out of a life well lived)
That really is the saddest picture, Magpie. Before my sister died she went through her own things and got rid of a lot, which was a pretty sad experience for her. I was spared the agony of going through my sister's remaining things after she passed. I don't think I would have been able to do that.
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