Shoe Horn

 

12/23/24 photo reference

He needed a shoe horn. I knew that it would be easier and less time-consuming to simply buy him a new one, especially given how cheap one would be. But my commitment to downsizing has some corollaries, and one is that I’m trying not to buy things that I know already exist somewhere in the house (if I can find them in a reasonable length of time). I have not yet finished sorting his closet, so there was a good chance a shoe horn was still in there.

In fact, it was so easy to find that I realized he had probably been using it regularly at home – a simple white shoe horn with the Hotel Sorrento’s logo. We had honeymoon travel plans that would begin a few days later, but for our wedding night, we had stayed in Seattle at the Sorrento.

As I put the shoe horn into my bag to bring to him, a part of me hesitated. Belongings have a way of “disappearing” at Aegis Living, either through misplacement or when confused residents wander into the wrong apartment and walk off with things. (Clothes and books that don’t belong to Greg have shown up in his apartment, too.) Part of me wanted to keep that Sorrento souvenir and buy him a generic one that wouldn’t mean anything to either of us, just in case it “disappeared.”

Then I realized that a plastic shoe horn with a logo carries no meaning. The meaning is in the fact that he had kept and used it all these years, and I hadn’t even been aware of it until now. I cherished that thought like a gift that would never be lost or taken from me.

When I gave it to him, I pointed out the Sorrento logo, but I couldn’t tell if it meant anything to him (I have stopped asking if he remembers things because it hurts too much when he doesn’t). He happily used it, though, to put on shoes for our walk. We held hands all the way around the park.