The slippers

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I’m told that somewhere in the past my wife has written up her version of this. So, I apologize if you’ve heard this before. But, I’ve got pictures...

My mother and her mother never approved of my wife or her family. The reasons are long, complicated and don’t make a lot of sense.

I had hoped that when we got married in 93 it would be the end of it. To some extent it was as my grandmother died two months later and never said another word on the subject.

My mother asked what my wife might like for Christmas. She told her a curio cabinet. (In my mother’s way she gave us money and we bought it.)
It was very nice.


My wife’s birthday is just after Christmas. When we saw my parents just before Christmas my mother asked me what she’d like for her birthday.
“Would she like slippers?” she asked me.
“Sure,” I said, thinking that would be safe.
“I want to give her something for her, not the apartment,” my mother said. “The Christmas thing is for where you live. I want this to be for her.”
“Slippers would be fine,” I said.

At Christmas, my mother handed over a give bag for my wife with instructions not top open it before her birthday.


My wife’s birthday arrived. I brought her my presents when she was still in bed. After opening them she asked if there was anything else.
“There’s that bag from my mother,” I said.
“OK,” she said. “I’ll open that.”

She picked up the bag, opened it and tilted it out onto the bed.


“These are little old lady slippers,” my wife said. “Does your mother think I’m a little old lady?”

One of the slippers had landed with the bottom up. I noticed the mark on the bottom.


“It gets worse,” I said, picking up the slipper. “My grandmother’s name is written on the bottom.”


We stared at them for a while.
“Maybe she bought them for her mother before she died,” I said. “Then, when her mother died, she wanted to keep them in the family.”
My wife put them back in the bag. I put the bag on the shelf in our closet where it remains 15 1/2 years later.

A week or so later I talked with my mother on the phone and it came up.
“Did she like the slippers?” my mother asked. “I never got a thank you note for them.”
“She was put off by your mother’s name being written on the bottom of them,” I said.
“Her name was on them?” my mother asked. “When that nurse gave them to your grandmother for her birthday, I didn’t know she put her name on them.”

My grandmother’s birthday was August 8th. She died almost exactly 4 months later.
So, she was given these slippers in August. Presumably wore them for 4 months then died.
My mother then took the slippers from her dead mother, put them in a gift bag and gave them to my wife for her birthday.

Comments

[pallid-regina.livejournal.com]

HOLY CRAP! Wow.