The Old Man's Shoes

My father always bought two pairs of the same shoes.

When the soles of his shoes couldn’t be patched anymore, my dad would buy two replacement pairs. One to wear, one to be stored in their box on the floor of the closet in my parents’ bedroom.

One day, with an exasperated, what’s-wrong-with-the-old-man attitude, I asked my mom, “What’s with dad and the extra pair of shoes?”

I was a kid. I was expecting an explanation of why my dad was an idiot. Not that he was an idiot, but I think I need to discover a way that I was better than he was.

He spoke 5 languages fluently. Or was it 6? Extraordinarily well-read and well-traveled, he was a tough target for competition for the boy who wanted to be as good if not better than he was.

My mom patiently explained, “When your father was growing up in Europe after the war, leather shoes were hard to come by. He was lucky and had a pair. He wore them for years, even when he outgrew them. He patched them with cardboard and anything else he could scrounge. When he sees the new pair of shoes in the box in the closet, it helps remind him of where he’s been and that he’ll never be there again.”

I was young enough not to have thought about my parents having a life before my sister and I were around. I was old enough to be impacted by a picture of my father's childhood so different from the one he was now providing his family.

I was also old enough to feel shame about thinking he was an idiot for buying two pairs of the same shoes.

I grew up a little that day.

The day I scratched the surface of getting to know my dad.