Just a Pair of Shoes

The day after we returned from West Virginia, Deanna had her first ever formal event - the Social Spring Formal. It was held at the Civic Center, had a live band, and was quite a "do"!

We bought her dress in February and had it altered to fit perfectly. I ordered elbow-length gloves for her to wear (the girls are all required to wear gloves at Social, but normally wear wrist-length cotton ones), but we couldn't seem to find the right shoes. We looked into buying dyables, but were told they would take longer than we had. Besides, my experience with dyables has not been positive. The dye tends to run and it seems they are only good for a single occasion, and at $25 a pop, plus the cost to dye, I was looking for an alternative.

On Thursday morning, April 22, I felt an overwhelming urgency about Deanna's shoes. Before school, I told Deanna I wanted to take her OUT of school to look for some and asked what classes she could afford to miss. She thought through her schedule and gave me a narrow window in the middle of the day, including her lunch period.

"I don't understand, Mom," she said. "Why are you taking me out of school? We still have this Saturday. We could shop ALL DAY if we needed to. Why take me out of school?"

I couldn't explain it, I just had this feeling - urgency. Get it done THEN. Don't wait.

I was embarrassed when I had to tell the school secretary why I was taking her. But we took off for the Mall, intent on using every free moment. As we looked at the ones I had scouted out the night before via Internet, the urgency in my spirit grew and Deanna missed her science class. We hit every store in the Mall that had shoes, then ended up right back at the first store again. However, we decided to go with white shoes instead of trying to match the color of the dress without having it with us.

To be on the safe side, I had ordered both pale pink (to match the dress) and white gloves. We decided that she could wear the white ones, the white shoes, and pearls, accenting her pale pink with white. As I returned her to school, I sighed with relief.

"I'm glad we got that done, but I still don't quite understand, Mom."

I had no better explanation after the fact. All I could tell her was that I had this feeling and HAD to get it done.

At 4:35 that afternoon, Grandpa called to tell us Grandma had died. On Saturday, we were at the Funeral Home and there was no time for shoe shopping. I wouldn't have even been able to think about Deanna's shoes, quite honestly, but we didn't have to - it was taken care of.

The day before my mother-in-law died, she baked two batches of cookies, something she always did before our visits, though we didn't have a visit planned. After her death, unable to sleep, Grandpa decided one night to prepare his medicines for the next day, something she always did for him. She died on a Thursday, but he discovered she had already done all his medicines for the next week.

The next night, I went downstairs to the basement to tuck Deanna in. I climbed on her airbed with her, put my arms around her, and we began to talk about Grandma.

"Mama," she confided, "I could barely choke down that cookie. I kept thinking it was the last cookie Grandma will ever make for me."

I knew she was struggling, as were we all, so I told her about Grandpa's medicine.

"Do you think Grandma knew she was going to die?" she asked.

"I don't think she knew the way you mean, hon," I tried to explain. "But I do think she had some feeling or sense that encouraged her to do certain things that prepared the way."

"Like you did about my shoes," she added.

Bingo.

"Mom, if the Holy Spirit was giving you a sense of urgency to get certain things done and giving Grandma a sense of urgency, that means it was the Lord's time for her."

Quite a mature young woman.

"Yes, dear, I DO think it was the Lord's time for Grandma. I don't yet understand why, but who knows - there could be many different reasons."

Knowing that God chose the day, that it wasn't some random accident, has given us all peace. Knowing Grandma had a day or two to prepare, even if she didn't understand exactly what she was preparing for, gave us all peace.

One pair of white dress shoes that hold a world of meaning to us - I don't think we'll ever be able to get rid of those shoes.

Hey, we could write a song and a movie; instead of "The Christmas Shoes", we could call it, "The Spring Formal Shoes"!!