I looked at those shoes every day. Sitting by the door, on the second shelf - a mix between hiking boots and sneakers, brown, with orange laces, size 6. He loved when he got new shoes. They made him feel powerful.
I'm not sure how they got on the shoe rack. When we came back from camping, friends of ours met us at the house, and unpacked for us. Someone must have put them there. Since we returned I looked at those shoes every day for weeks, obsessed. I cried about the shoes, but mostly I just thought about them. I still do.
One day I decided I had to do it. I had to admit that he wasn't coming back, that he wasn't going to wear those shoes. I held the shoes and I didn't know what to do. I had to move them, I just had to, I couldn't stand it any longer. Standing there, holding the shoes, I wasn't sure where to put them. Grabbing them had been impulsive. I realized I could throw them away, but I didn't want to. Some part of me still hadn't accepted that he wasn't coming back. I put the shoes in the bin in the closet, just in case. I thought that he might be mad that I took them off his shelf.
Today it has been only twelve weeks since he died, within hours, at age fourteen of yet unknown causes. I am waiting for it to make sense, to make sense of a world where things like this happen. I cannot understand the enormity of our loss, but I understand the shoes.
Rebecca
