These shoes hurt

Grandma was always persnickety with her shoes. Even when I was growing up and she was just an old lady somewhere in her mid-50s, she bitched and moaned about those orthopedic oxfords she wore. Comfortable shoes, my foot – she’d say to that nasty woman Gertrude she lived with after Granddad died.

I didn’t much mind that Grandma became a lesbian in her golden years, but did she have to shack up with Gertrude, that frowning prune of a square-shaped German woman?

But when Gertrude died, Grandma seemed kind of sad for a few days. And then she went out and found herself another woman, Genevieve the basketball coach with the giant schnauzers and the high-necked collars. One day, poor Genevieve unsuspecting, I walked into their room at the farm and saw Genevieve’s neck. Turkey city!

Meanwhile, let’s get back to those sensible shoes. I know it’s a stereotype, and even a cliché, but hey – Grandma wanted sensible shoes. But she still bitched and moaned about ‘em. They hurt her feet.

A couple of years ago, before Grandma kicked the bucket one August afternoon when she was watering the lawn and fell on the sprinkler, Grandma was sitting in one of those plaid high-backed chairs her generation seemed to love. She kept tilting to the right, and I’d push her back to the left. The she’d tilt to the left, and I’d push her back to the right. Finally she tilted forward, and I pushed her back in the chair.

“Oh, leave me be. Can’t you tell I’m trying to fart?”

I guess when you’re an 80-year-old lesbian making a third go of it at marriage, you can say and do whatever you like. So I took Grandma to Macy’s and got her the best shoes money could buy. I miss Grandma.