The Shoes

Go look in your closet. How many pairs of shoes do you own? How many of those do you actually wear? When I look in my closet, I see eight pairs of shoes. I have black dress shoes to wear with my suit. I have casual black and brown boots that go well with slacks and jeans. I like boots because it simplifies the sock choice. I have another pair of casual boots that I will put on but they never seem to make it out of the house. I always change to something else. I have athletic shoes for the gym. I have flip-flops for the beach and another pair of athletic shoes that I also wear with jeans. Then there is the final pair of shoes. They are brown, stressed leather boots that I bought on sale many years ago. These are the shoes that I am wearing as most of my life unfolds. If you want to know what it feels like to be me, where I come from, and where I am most likely going…take a walk in this pair of my shoes.

I like to watch prison documentaries on television. I watch with a strange sense of interest. I get a voyeuristic thrill out of watching all the caged people and listening to the horrible things they have done. I do feel a certain level of exploitative guilt but I can’t turn away. Not unlike the zoo, where one goes to get close to animals of the wild, these men and woman seem dangerous and without conscience. I watch to see their anger and listen to the menacing banter. Their existence seems foreign to me and even though I have been in my fair share of scrapes with the law, I am sure that I am not like them. Invariably the same thought comes to mind. How did they turn out this bad? I can’t get my head around the choices that they have made. I would not have made those choices. But then, my life choices are not the same as theirs.

My life has been based on success and a journey toward happiness. I have chosen between good and better. Never, if I should go to college, but which college should I attend? Not, can I get a job, but which one do I want? My worries have never included anything involving: shelter, food to eat or clothes to wear. I lived my life, from day to day, heading toward whatever life I wanted. All I needed to do was work hard and let the opportunities present themselves. These men and women that I watched on TV had lives that never included college or success. They were never exposed to opportunities. Theirs was of life of choosing between bad and worse. Most never had a choice about future imprisonment, it was simply a question of when they would go to prison. They survived, they did not actually live. They made their way through life with death following close behind. I watched them just as I would the any caged animal at the zoo. My view was from the right side of the bars. Nice and safe, in my life, on the free side.

Here is the thing…once upon a time, these monsters, were all babies in cribs just like me. Innocent and full of promise. Then their life showed up. If we switched lives. If my life was a struggle to survive and theirs was a life in the pursuit of success and happiness then they would be watching me in a cage on television. They would be shaking their head and wondering, how I could be so bad?

One can never know what it is like to be another, to feel as another does. Pain and loss, love and happiness, decisions and actions are unique to each of us and the lives in which we are immersed. It is therefore unwise to judge another based on your own life experiences. It is arrogant for you to say that you understand someone’s behaviors or to say with confidence that, “you would never” or “you always”. You can never completely comprehend the life of another. You have not walked in their shoes.

I have attended many funerals in my life. They are always such sad affairs. I have never understood why the “open casket”. I guess that some think it allows people the chance to say goodbye to the deceased. I have always felt awkward saying goodbye to the body because in my mind the person is already gone. Each body is different but they are all similar in that, if you did not know them well, you could never really understand the person they were in life. The deceased is always well dressed. The face does not quite look like the person did in life but it looks quiet as if they are sleeping. Which I guess they are…forever. Young old and in between, from the best to the worst, the most kind to the mean, rich or poor, happy or sad they all appear the same but their lives are all quite different. The reason for the elusive understanding is simple. You cannot understand the life of the deceased because it is only the top half of the casket that is open…you cannot see their shoes.