The Shoes

He sat two seats down from me in the emergency waiting room. His weathered face and hands spoke of a man who had spent most of his life working outdoors; perhaps as a farmer or rancher. He was very neat in his appearance, of small stature, elderly, sitting slightly bowed. The way he tilted his head, with one side leaning more forwardly than the other, gave me the impression that he might be hard-of-hearing. He strained to hear, though ever so slightly, towards the loud and agitated words coming from his wife as she spoke presumably to their son-in-law about the nature of their daughter's wellbeing after having been in a car wreck.

In his hands he held a pair of black patent leather pumps, not stylish in today's fashion of pointed toes and stiletto heels. He held onto them tightly and lovingly as though if he could just hold on long enough and with great vigilance, even through the confusion and mayhem about him in the emergency room, he could hold onto the life of the owner of those shoes, his daughter, who was somewhere behind doors closed to him in the care of others.

There was a quiet stillness about him as he was so intent about his singleness of purpose. I felt that as his wife, the mother of his daughter, fretted about the whereabouts of the purse of their beloved, that he, having the possession of something belonging to her, gave him a power over the outcome. While his face showed concern, it was also slack with a peacefulness that his mission of willing his daughter, his once little girl, back to life would indeed be fulfilled. All it required was his steadfast love and patience and all would be right so long as he held onto the talisman; her shoes, to walk the journey to reclaim life.