Small Moment

This is a photo of my feet yesterday morning. Oh, nothing special about the feet, trust me. Rather, the socks are the star of this post.

The combination of years of cancer treatment (including eye-watering doses of thalidomide in the very early years) and the onset of diabetes in the last seven months has done nothing but increase the neuropathy in my feet. The neuropathy makes itself known in a a spectacular array of ways: numbness, shooting pains, spasms, tingling, loss of balance.

The neuropathy also makes me shed my shoes whenever I can, which is most of the time I am at home. I have to wear something on my feet because I cannot stand the sensation of walking on any surface in my bare feet (yet another gift of neuropathy). Spring, summer, and fall, I immediately switch to flip flops when I walk through the door. In the winter, I don house slippers, or, more accurately, house boots. I wear them on the large side, to avoid putting too much pressure on my feet. To keep them on my feet, I always wear a pair of socks.

My favorite winter indoor socks are a wonderful pair of socks that my friend and Myeloma Beacon editor Maike knit for me. They are soft, they are warm, they are blue.

And yesterday they were in the wash. What to wear? What to wear?

I asked Warren, before we even got out of bed that morning, whether we still had the orange socks. Yes. They were in the drawer in which he keeps his heavier work socks. Problem solved: I would don the orange socks.

The orange socks are mine. I got them when I was in high school. Yes. in high school. To put that date in perspective, I graduated in June, 1974. 1974. That was many, many, many years ago. They may have been a Christmas present that senior year December (1973).

The socks have been with me ever since. They have traveled to college and to law school, making appearances in various classes over the year. They have gone from Ohio to Illinois to Ohio to Oregon to Ohio to California to Ohio, and points in between. They have been in snow on Mt. Hood, in Hyde Park in Chicago, and, of course, here in Delaware.

When I put them on this morning, I discovered a hole in the toe of one sock. I laughed as I grabbed my mending kit. "I don't have to match thread color," I said to Warren. "Not like these are going to be on display." Five minutes later, the hole was sealed and the socks and slippers were on my feet.

Those who know me well know that I do not like to buy clothes, I rarely buy new, and, once I have something, I wear it endlessly. One top I wear regularly is older than my son Ben, who just turned 33, by at least two years. It has held up fine through court, through concerts, through speaking events. In fact, I wore it when Warren and I got married. At this rate, it will outlast me.

But the orange socks take the cake. 45 years and counting. They are well traveled, they are well educated, and they are well worn.

And they are just fine.