A few days after daddy died my brother Scott, his wife, Cindy, and I went back to his room and picked up the rest of his things. His black leather loafers were still in the closet by his bed. Before his death, many times during my visits he would point to the closet and say “Are they in there? Come on, let’s go!“ I would open the closet and show him the shoes and tell him we didn’t need them just yet.
I don’t know how old the shoes are, but they look just like the ones he wore over twenty years ago when we hiked to the tea house at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. It would be fitting indeed if they were the very shoes he wore as he laughingly and fearlessly led us up the steep incline. Our oldest boys were five and seven and loved each minute of the exploration, only too ready to follow King Jon’s every step!
The day I brought his shoes home I put them on and felt the bigness of them. My feet slid around much like they did when I was a child. I felt the weight and size of them…big shoes to fill, too big for me, so I put them in my closet next to my own shoes. Day after day I felt the stinging loss of him when I would see the shoes that once marched up mountains collecting dust next to my Sperrys.
Our twenty-seven year old son, Keenan, had always been a kindred spirit to his Papa Jon. They loved to talk of wars and weapons, ancient civilizations and kings and generals. In the 4th grade Keenan wrote an essay about his hero, Papa Jon, describing all the things he admired about him.
Flash forward to this evening. We had family dinner and Keenan and his lovely partner Jen stayed a little later than the others. As we were talking I suddenly remembered the shoes. I asked Keenan if he thought they might fit and he said he’d like to try them on. I ran to the closet, dusted them off and he slipped them on like Cinderella’s glass slippers!
The joy I felt at that moment took me by surprise! I’d been ignoring how bothered I was that my dad’s shoes were empty, sitting in my closet. They was a constant reminder that he is gone and I can’t see him, hold his hand, kiss his forehead, or sing to him ever again in this lifetime. But now, they are filled with someone who loves adventure and life as much as King Jon did. Someone who called him Papa and cherished him, someone who King Jon was especially fond of.
My heart is full…and so are daddy’s shoes!
Seasons of the Soul 