I adore shoes. In my younger days when my lifestyle was quite different from now, I actually had a shoe room. It was lined with every kind of shoe I’d ever want.

When I bought new shoes I did so not because I needed them, but because I liked them.

Also, I keep them forever. Just as long as they fit, and I still liked the color, it never occurred to me to give them away.

One rainy day I decided to rearrange my shoe room. We had been away from our Florida home for a good while. So I got the shock of my life when I opened the door.

You know how shoes get dry and hard inside? The leather on the inside sole starts to curl up as it dries and the outside starts to crack.

That day I discovered about 30 pairs of shoes dying of “Cracked Dryness Disease.” 

I got an idea. I bought a huge jar of Vaseline and I slopped and slathered that stuff in and out of every crack in every shoe. I left them encased with that gunk for two weeks. 

I reentered the shoe room and began rubbing each pair until all the Vaseline was worked in and they were soft and pliable like they were brand new.

I chose a beautiful pale pink pair to wear with my new dress for Mother’s Day.

I slipped them on. They looked wonderful. They felt wonderful. But when I began to walk, my heels slipped and flopped right out of those shoes.

When I took a step the shoe just folded into its own luxurious softness. There was no suction or structure left.

I took a long sad look at my shoe room. It looked like a shoe morgue. I shut the door thinking maybe they will, in time, stiffen. If not, I would have to start my collection all over again.

Ain’t life hard sometimes?

I was a different person then. I knew little of a hard life.

Now I live in an assisted living facility and I know about growing old and being ill.

Guess what? I still adore shoes.

No longer do I have a shoe room. I do not wear high heels or sandals or have 30 pairs of shoes to choose from.

But my shoe story this time again started with my feet and shoes to put on them. After another bout with hospitalization for pneumonia, my daughter, knowing my love affair with shoes, brought me a beautiful pair of lavender Nikes and I wore them every single day.

It seems like my time was filled up with walking and treatments and exercise and I showered regularly but, to tell you the truth, I did not pay much attention to fingernails and surely not to toenails.

But one day I looked at my beautiful shoes and guess what I saw? Right on the very top of my right big toe was a hole.

I leaned over to investigate and sticking out of that hole was a sharp, long big toenail.

My first thought was I had to buy another pair just that color and style and fit, and they’re not cheap.

Soon after this discovery, while in my exercise class, I made some remark out loud about all of this and one of my friends here said if I’d give my shoe to her she could fix it.

How do you fix a hole except to sew it closed?

My friend is an artist, and I trust her, but when I took the shoe to her, she asked for both of them.

Two days later, she returned my holy shoe and its mate. But now, both shoes had identical holes in the top of each shoe.

And that’s not all. She had drawn around each hole a beautiful flower with indelible ink and to complete her solution, she glued a little shiny gem in each hole.

My shoes were a work of art. I could not wait to put them on again.

Every time I wore them, someone, even strangers in a doctor’s office, will comment on my beautiful lavender Nikes. I’ve even been asked where they could buy a pair like them.

God bless my friend. I honor her love and her creativity.

I have gone from smothering 30 pairs of shoes with Vaseline even though I almost never wore them to saving the one beautiful pair I wear daily.

I wonder: Do we have to grow old to realize what is truly important in life? 

The view from the mountain is wondrous.

Jean Brody is a passionate animal lover and mother. She previously lived in Winchester, but now resides in Littleton, Colorado. Her column has appeared in the Sun for more than 25 years.