Finding Momentum

I looked at my shoes today: brown loafers, a size too large on my feet. I was walking back from class, when I remembered my father and thought about his shoes. They are his; bought years ago but never worn. They are classy, with shiny brown patent leather, certainly the kind of shoes that would make a statement at any formal event.

My father doesn't wear these shoes. He wears another pair proudly, a pair of Bass loafers bought from an outlet store. He's worn them for seven years or so, always proudly showing them to us. "See how long I've worn them?" he used to brag to us, "They're so comfortable!"

My mind's eye takes me to his boyhood in Taiwan; he is playing in the grassy banks of the Hsintien river, dallying in the water, swimming in its clear, swift current. He has nothing to do all summer but eat water apples and watermelon slices and run along the shores' silver banks.

He is from a poor family, but they are happy. At night they sit around the table and talk, smiling, laughing about the day's events. His brothers, sisters and he are all tanned, their hair shocked from the sun and heat.

Last year, my father told me to take these shiny loafers shoes up to school. "You might need them for special occasions," he told me. They were a size too big, so I took the insoles off my running shoes and stuck them into these clunky shoes. Then they sat in my apartment by the doorway, waiting for the few special occasions that I did get to wear them: weddings, banquets and formals.

As a child, my father wears his shoes until the soles wear out. These shoes have lay upon the riverbanks for countless summer hours--patiently watching as my father, a playful boy, swims in the waters. They cannot afford to buy more shoes, but he doesn't mind. To him, they are just as comfortable as the day he received them.

And still, my father wears his shoes until the soles run out. It never crosses his mind to buy a new pair. Despite the insistence of my mother to get him a new pair, he stubbornly wears the same ones. To work, on vacations, in airplanes, on nature hikes, on the tennis court and along sun-soaked riverbanks.

I am walking back from class, wearing shiny shoes that my father hasn't worn--yet--when I think about him.