Daddy had to be buried without his shoes. I’ve always wondered how he would have felt about it if he knew. He was tall. About five feet eleven, maybe. I’ve always thought he was big too.
He wore his black cotton socks, they said, but his shoes just couldn’t fit in anymore. In fact they said that if we wanted they could put his shoes in but it would have to be laid on top of his legs. I took them home instead, those shoes.
They were relatively new. Soft black leather with smooth soles, you could tell they were not used very often. Daddy referred to them as his “dress shoes.”