THE CHRISTMAS SHOES

In an earlier post I wrote about my Grandmother, Florence. I still miss her, and she has been gone for 20 years.
She died when she was 71, I was a young bride, a nurse living in Vermont when she died. I was a child of 1960's and she was a big piece of my Growing Up Years. I learned Everything from her.(You can read my post from last year if you clink the title).
I placed this post between her two favorite Christmas songs.

She was Many Things.
Unconditional Love.
Love Notes in Pockets.
Juicy fruit and Peppermint lifesavers.
"White Shoulders perfume"
Silk not Cotten. Cashmere sweaters.
Linen Suits and Italian Shoes.
Yelow roses with dew.
Beautiful smokey grey eyes.
Wavey Auburn hair that had copper highlights in the sun.
Slowdancing with my Grandad...Nat King Cole and Johnny Mathis.
Moonlight Sinata and Pachabel and Handel.
Beautiful White goatskin golf shoes, with lavender trim.

She loved golf, getting up early and walking the greens. She never got good at golf, she was not the most competitive person, she enjoyed being outside with friends. She had emphysema and they moved to Florida for her health, where they also played golf to help her lungs. She would end up battling Breast and Lung Cancer.

In the 1980's I did my best to help her battle her Cancers and then helped her find Hospice Care. In November 21 years ago I went to see her and take my new Husband ( my sweet Ex) and we joked about the Ice in Vermont and having to walk up and down icey streets to the Hospital to work. She joked that her golf shoes would work well, that the spikes would do fine on the ice. I didn't think anything of it, until later, much later when Christmas 1987 came and I recived a package. I was happy to see it looked like a shoebox. It was Christmas eve. Flo and I had always shared shoes, I wear 10AAA, not a normal shoe size, but the same size as my elegant sophistcated grandmother, and when she got tired of different shoes she would send them my way. That cold icey December day on the Front steps of my apartment building and realized that she had sent me shoes, feeling warm and loved in that moment, just like I had numerous times. Then I opend the box and saw the beautiful white leather shoes, and also felt my heart sink because I knew that She was Gone. It was my Very Best present, I knew that as I sat there crying on the icey steps in the Vermont Snow.

Sadly she died Christmas Eve. A part of me is so sad that she died that close to Christmas, her Favorite Holiday. She loved Christmas, she collected cards and gifts year round. ( Which meant as kids we spent alot of time rooting through her house Searching for the Stash Spots). She had sent out her packages as usual, so she did not think she would not be here. She was battling lung and breast cancer, and she was in Hospice Care at the time. But I know she thought she still had a little time.
She sent Ted my grandad out to the store and she passed. He was so heartbroken. I really believe that it was too hard for her to say goodbye to him, to let him go. And yet a part of me has never let her go either.

Once you have had such a grandmother you can not help but believe in Angels. On Earth and in Heaven.