My dad wears shoes that don’t walk. Look at feet in a nursing home and you’ll recognize this category of footwear. These shoes show no wear — except around the laces where they’ve been tied in the morning by a caregiver; and untied at night in the same way. There’s no dirt in the tread. They are thick-rubber soled, no-nonsense, comfort shoes.
I’ve been closer to Dad’s shoes lately than before, since he’s not able to put them on himself now. There’s both honor and humility at shoe-level. Yesterday I lifted his stiff legs and feet to secure them in paddle-rests of a loaned clinic wheelchair.
I knew him through work shoes, steel-toed boots, church shoes and cowboy boots (midlife crisis). Toward the end come shoes that don’t walk.