When I was 5, my mom made me wear corrective shoes.
It was a special brand: Markell Workboots. They had a thick white (glowing?) sole and bright yellow showelaces. They looked like something an old-time cobbler made. No one else had them. I tried to cover them with my pant legs as best I could. Hard to play soccer at recess in workboots.
But my mom insisted: “You’ve got bunions,” she said. “There’s an extra bone in your foot.”
I didn’t see anything.
My brother made fun of my shoes every chance he got; it was low-hanging fruit.
The man behind my Markell Workboots was Bob Sprafski, a large, rotund man with a deep voice, loose neck, always breathing heavy. He took a good 10 seconds to get down on one knee, really worked for it, but he didn’t mind; he believed strongly in good shoes. His large hands wrapped around my foot and ankle always felt comforting. I looked forward to that part.
But the shoes. Man, those shoes.
And that wasn’t the end of it. Eventually, my mom gave up on the Markell Workboots; Bob Sprafski disappeared. Maybe one caused the other.
Instead of shoes, she found me a toe brace that I had to wear every night. It was this weird contraption that velcroed on, and then you ratcheted the big toe away from the other toes. My friends had a field day during sleepovers.
“Is that a bionic toe?”
“Get your bunions away from me.”
This was what it was to be my mom’s son: doing everything unlike everybody else, learning from a different how-to book.
I remember whenever we got a green light at a certain underpass, we’d have to pay tribute to my dead grandfather.
“Hello Victor,” we’d all shout.
My mom gave weird advice.
“You should sing her a love song in class.”
She insisted on mispronouncing words her entire life, even after I corrected her.
Parmeezin Cheese
Sonameters
When my mom believed something, whether it was right or wrong, it became right, so right that it was law and you didn’t question it anymore. We’d be driving down a one-way street (you could plainly see the white arrows in the road pointing the other way!)
“Ma, I think this is a one-way.”
“No, it’s not.”
And so it wasn’t.
That’s how I grew up, learning laws that weren’t laws, playing by a playbook no one else has heard of. It wasn’t hurtful; it was just our way.
As a teen, she’d walk behind me while I checked out shoes. When I picked one up, she’d put out her hand.
“No arch support,” she’d say, and I’d have to put it back. According to mom, a healthy skeleton starts with good arch support.
With my first job, came a new chapter of footwear. I went to the store alone and bought some skater shoes, bout as flat a sole as you can find. No arch support.
“You’re going to pay for it later,” she’d say.
But it didn’t make a difference. I could play soccer, slip my shoes on and off with very little effort, no one made any remarks. I bought whatever shoes I wanted. For years.
25 pairs of shoes later, a growth is starting to form on my right foot, as if the little bump at the base of the big toe is expanding.
Now, when I coach soccer and run along the side lines, it hurts. I’ve been dealing with it for about a year.
“You’ve got bunions,” a friend said.
And I have to wonder… Would those God-awful Markell Workboots have helped?
When I think about all of those moments of weirdness in my childhood, my mom’s strange tangle of logic, it was a hard path to walk but it never harmed me; it was like we took the rollercoaster instead of the tram. We got whipped around a bit, but we came out pretty okay.
I haven’t shopped with my mom in years. The only shopping she does now is at the Super One. She takes a $1 bus ride 3 times a week to go buy pre-packaged roast beef sludge in little plastic trays along with big tubs of yogurt. That’s what she eats every day, in addition to milk and chocolate.
“A little piece of chocolate and some milk and, boop, no upset stomach.”
“Wow, mom. That’s crazy.” She tells me this nearly every time we speak. It’s hard to keep up the enthusiasm, like I’m hearing it for the first time. But I try.
According to a faith-based nurse at her church, my mom needs shoes.
“Her body is in great shape, but her sneakers are pretty worn.”
So now I’m working with a ‘Dementia Navigator’ to help her shop for shoes from 2 states away.
When I picture some stranger walking my mom into a Foot Locker by the elbow, all the bright lights, the rows and rows of shoes on the wall, Bob Sprafski and her son nowhere in sight, I can see her clutching her 50-year old cracked-vinyl teal purse to her chest, eyes wide, small steps.
I’ve half a mind to get on a plane.
“Any idea what type of shoe your mom will want?” the voice asks, and I can tell she thinks I won’t have a clue.
“Yeah,” I say, knowing what it feels like to lose a part of yourself you never cherished enough.
“Make sure they have good arch support.”
