Cotton, white, smooth, stretched too far from months of washing your feet, moisturizing them, massaging them and then slipping clean white socks onto your feet as quick as possible as they felt so cold. You felt more vulnerable without your socks than you did when I washed your body. I knew when I put those socks on our morning regimen was completed. You were washed, sheets were changed and hair brushed… pillows under your dead arm and under your legs… Next came the exercises to try and get your limbs going…I tired so hard to feel any muscle movement from you…encouraging you as the months went by and muscle mass faded away…
Oh god… today honey, I threw away those socks… that protected you so…somehow even with a hospital gown they gave you dignity…. It’s sounds crazy right.. but today – I put them along with your old Armani black boxers in an old holiday liqueur gift back that said “Celebration”… fitting I thought… “Celebration” all in glitter… white and black soft cotton that touched your body…. I took that bag and put it in the garbage…
The pain and tears of seeing those white socks… you’re white and black pallet of dressing… so others could shine… and you by contrast would stand out with your horn rimmed glasses, long hair and tattoos…. I couldn’t see them again… the energy of your illness and death…that time, that horrible nightmare in pairs of white socks…
They represented the care I took… taking off the ones from the night before and finishing… how the hell did we/you/I do it…
So here I am sitting barefoot – on your iPad – wishing for you. In black and white…
I love you dearly.