It's hardly mid-October and I'm already looking forward to the month of November's arrival. This is when daylight savings time will end. As I close my door, I am reminded by the darkness of the morning, that I need to call mother and wake her now so that she will be able to open her door for me. Today, like the rest of the week, mother is sleeping in due to the late arrival of daylight. Each morning this week has brought a new batch of confusion as I entered mother's house. Anything from where am I, to I must be at my other house, to who brought me here, have been some of the comments that awaited me.
This morning she is telling me that if I come to this house, she won't be there, that she is at another house.It doesn't occur to her that I have called her at this house and she has answered.
When I arrive, she opens the door. I can see her hair which was permed just a week ago, flattened on the side and creases on her face from sleep. Her eyes are peering at me in a telling way. "Jean, I woke up in this house and I'm afraid somebody's going to find me here." Not wanting to get into a discussion of foolishness, I change the subject as I look down and see that she has forgotten to put her shoes on. It's not a good idea for mother to go around in her sock feet, due to a danger of slipping and falling on her linoleum kitchen floor. "Lets go back here and find you some shoes mother," I say. As we enter her bedroom, I can see that mother is very fidgety. I pick up a pair of shoes that mother wears most frequent, she looks at them and says she has never seen them before, I tell her that she wears them just about every day, but she won't hear of it. Picking up another pair, she tells me that we need to get out of there before we wake up the people who these shoes belong to!
For some reason, mother has some sort of a fascination with people and their shoes. It's a well known fact in our family that mother will ask most everyone when they come if they're wearing new shoes. My brother-in-law is the recipient of this question from mother most often. Without failing, when he comes, whether he's wearing new shoes or a pair that he's had for years, mother will ask this question.
Many years ago, I recall one Easter season when mother was in search of a very special pair of shoes. As she had always done, mother had carefully selected her Easter outfit including a white linen suit with a red polka-dotted long sleeve blouse complimented with a tie just at the edge of her neckline. The only thing missing was a matching pair of shoes. For some reason, mother got it in her head that she needed a pair of "red polka-dotted shoes to complete her outfit.
It just so happened that there was a new outlet mall called "Waccamaw" which had opened down in Spartanburg, SC, where mother and I had a habit of frequenting when we decided to go shopping. Off we went, in search of these rare shoes. I'm not sure what the word "waccamaw" means, but we always referred to it as "walk a mile" because by the time you got out of there, if felt like you had walked a mile!
After several hours of shopping, we had come to the realty that these shoes were not to be found. Looking at my watch, I told mother that we needed to get back. With Easter being the next day, mother was not so sure that we needed to leave. "Let's sit down here on this bench for a little while and rest," she said. Now I have shared with you in several post, what a God fearing, woman of faith my mother was. Suddenly, she began to pray and ask God to help her find those eluding red polka-dotted shoes. I must admit, even though I prided myself as being someone who believed in the power of prayer, I had thoughts that mother had dropped a lose screw or so while we were walking around so long. Just as she finished, she jumped up and said "lets look in this one last store and if we don't find them, I'll just get a plain red pair. As I entered the store, I couldn't help but grin, knowing that this search was almost coming to an end. Mother headed straight back to the high heels. As I rounded the corner of the aisle, I could hear her saying, "Thank you Lord!" Looking at mother sitting on the seat trying on a pair of red polka-dotted high heels, sporting a stylish bow on top was more than I could believe. I learned several things that day, but the most important lesson was that no matter what your need is; great or small, God is always there to help you.
My mother has several pairs of shoes which she wears today, but none of them are heels. I can only imagine the smile on God's face as my mother walked through the doors of Silver Creek Baptist Church wearing her red polka-dotted shoes that Easter morning!
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