Walking in Her Shoes

There was a moment in the 1980s when Bass shoes were all the rage. “Go Bass or Go Barefoot” was the brand’s snappy tagline, and its strappy Sunjuns were beloved for their comfort and durability. One of their biggest fans was my mother. For her, they were the holy grail of footwear, an open-toed shoe with a wide footbed and cushioned arch support to accommodate her inconsolable feet, which, like the rest of her body, were being ravaged by rheumatoid arthritis.   

My mother’s feet were gnarled and tormented, and her toes curled over each other at odd angles, like tangled tree roots. As the cartilage on her joints wore down, doctors at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan inserted pins, plates, and rods to fuse her bones, intricate procedures that entailed her being away for weeks at a time. 

I was seven years old when she had her first foot surgery. I would slip into her closet, hiding from my grandparents, in search of my mother. She wasn’t there, but her sturdy Bass shoes, with their adjustable leather straps and padded suede insoles, were patiently awaiting her return. In their boxes, they were stacked to the ceiling like books in the library: warm cinnamon ones for the winter, bone white for summer weddings, and a deep coral red for when her feet were feeling especially angry, she’d once told me. I’d open the boxes and inhale the chalky leather and musky scent left behind by her stockinged feet. Sometimes I would slide my feet into them, walking around the way some little girls strut in too-big three-inch heels.  

When she got home from the hospital that fall, she brought me a present she’d picked up at the hospital gift shop, a pair of little yellow wind-up shoes, with neat white plastic laces and red soles. She wanted to remind me I could go anywhere, in any shoes I chose. I’d take them to the foyer, wind them, and listen to their mechanical whirl as they whizzed across the floor. I often wished I could give my mother my sturdy, dependable feet, wished for a world in which she didn’t have to fumble across the house with a walker, grimacing, in pain. She continued to walk in her Sunjuns for another decade, their spongy softness soaking up each bracing step. 

My feet have remained sturdy and steady over the years, the arthritis skipping a generation. I still have the yellow shoes, nestled in a glass box in my bedroom, and sometimes I put them in the palm of my hand. I marvel at their smallness, their steadfastness. They’re all I have left of her, I tell my daughter. She winds the dial, and together we watch them walk their carefree steps, dancing in the dappled afternoon light.  

Alison Damast Dolinger is a writer based in Irvington, New York. Her poetry has appeared in Tarry magazine and the forthcoming Hudson Valley Arts Collective’s Poems for a Wish anthology. She is a freelance journalist and holds an MS in journalism from Columbia Journalism School. When not writing, she can be found singing with the Manhattan Choral Ensemble and exploring the Hudson Valley with her family and goldendoodle. Follow her on Instagram @alidol79.    

This essay is a Short Reads original.