In Memoriam
I said goodbye to some good friends this week - my "old school" canvas Nike tennis shoes. Even in looking at this picture, I wonder if I made the right decision; sure, the sides were blowing out and the insides were scrunching up something awful, but it's not like it was their fault.
It's mine. And I feel awful for it.
I remember buying these shoes. I lived in Colorado then, had but one small child, and was looking for something to go against the flow of the over-inflated, all-leather, multi-color astronaut shoes most stores were selling and that so many were wearing.
And then I saw them - the simplicity, the canvas, the statement they made by just being who they were. It was then and there - in the midst of those god-forsaken shoe shrines to all things bright and inflatable - that I knew: if I were a shoe, I would be one of these.
But, alas, they are no more. And if they are indeed now gone, truly they have taken at least a part of me with them; already I miss them and their classic "old schoolness" that I loved so much.
Goodbye, dear friends. You have served me well. May your soles find rest in God alone.