Shoes

I’ve recently been watching “TV Guide’s Countdown:  The Top 25 Oprah Show Moments.”  I love countdowns.  Even if it is a subject or genre in which I have no interest, I’m always curious to see what was chosen as #1.  I usually either love it or hate it.  I’m usually flabbergasted (THAT is what they thought was #1?!) or pleasantly surprised (Good choice!  Definitely a great #1!).

Last week’s episode featured as one of the top moments an episode of the Oprah show when she and a Holocaust survivor visited Auschwitz concentration camp, considered the most deadly:  nearly 1.5 million people died there.  One of the short clips they showed was in a room at Auschwitz where millions of shoes are piled and encased behind glass.  I literally felt vomit rise up in me – this brief scene was sickening, unfathomable.  After a moment of silence, the survivor said, “Each of these shoes represents a life, a person who lived.  For some, it was their only pair of shoes.  See that red shoe there?  Probably a dancer.”

This touched me, especially because we often hear about walking or putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes.  Just as those shoes represented the lives lost, “walking in their shoes” represent a life lived, perhaps with great struggle, pain, trials.

I often feel with regard to my migraines that I wish people on the outside would walk in my shoes.  Not because I particularly wish them to have a migraine, but because I want them to consider what it might be like to be in so much pain you literally wish you could die.  Because I want someone to care that I would do anything for relief because it hurts so much and seems so hopeless.  I know many people think I’m a baby or a hypochondriac when it comes to the pain, and I’m learning to be okay with people thinking that.  I’ve also discovered that sometimes I am a baby when it comes to pain and that sometimes I can push myself farther than I care to or thought I could.

But do I give this same courtesy to others?  Do I consider what they might be thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing?  Have I ever thought that, as I know from personal experience, people on the outside don’t know what happens “behind closed doors?”  That perhaps, someone I know and love could be going through something I find unimaginable?

I have worked in customer service in many forms, and I love interacting with customers.  Although there are some who get angry or are unpleasant, there are so many more who make me laugh and smile and brighten my shift just with their pleasant attitude.  And in turn, can’t I do the same?  The other night, a beautiful and rather thin young woman impeccably dressed came through my line with just a few items and a tiny infant in the carrier in the buggy.  She seemed tired but smiled at me, so I began asking her about her daughter.  I then said, “Who looks like you do after having a baby just a few weeks ago?”  Her eyes welled up with tears:  “You just made my day.  Today was my first day back at work, and it was hard to leave her.”

As the exited the store, she turned back and said, “You really made my day.  Thank you.”  Man, how blessed did I feel?  In a somewhat joking, even envious moment, I had made a comment to a stranger that lifted her spirits.  Haven’t I been blessed countless times through a kind word or deed?  I don’t see how I can do anything less than slip on the shoes of another and be a blessing as they live in those shoes that I maybe couldn’t handle.