Grandpa's Shoes
My stepmother tellsthis tale.
"My grandparents on my father's side argued constantly.Grandma was a bossy lady who liked to have her own way, and nomatter what Grandpa did, he couldn't please her. As they gotolder, he started to say, after every battle, 'When I die, I'mgoing to come back and haunt you.'
"The night he died, my grandmother phoned me to ask whetherI would make all of the funeral arrangements. I agreed. One ofthe things I had to do was choose the clothes he would be buriedin.
"My grandfather was a very neat man. Everything he owned hadits place, and woe to the person who moved anything. Whenever wekids played at their house, we were always careful not to go nearhis closet and disturb his shoes, which were lined up neatly: thebrown Sunday best shoes, then his'going-out shoes,' then his workshoes, and so on.
"When I picked out his funeral clothes, I debated which pairof shoes to take. I asked my grandmother, who told me to take thebrown Sunday-best pair. Then she told me to throw the rest of hisshoes away because no one in our family wore his size. I did as Iwas told.
"A few years later, when my grandmother died, I had the sadtask of cleaning out her house. My mother warned me that I shouldgo in the daytime, as Grandma always complained that Grandpa hadcome back to haunt her.
"She never slept well at night in that house after he died,you know, Mother told me. 'She said that he walked around atnight, keeping her awake, so she took to sleeping during the day.'As we both chuckled, my daughter, who was six at the time, said,'I didn't like staying at Grandma's. People were always walkingaround in that house.' I explained to her that old houses creakas they settle, or when the wind blows, but I made sure it wasbright daylight when I went over there.
"I spent the morning cleaning the downstairs, planning totackle the bedrooms after lunch.
"When I opened the door to my Grandfather's closet, therehung his suits, covered with dust. And there on the floor, in thesame spot where they had sat for years, were Grandpa's brownSunday-best shoes. The ones he was buried in. Covered with mudand green mold, the shoes were still wet, as if the owner hadkicked them off only a moment ago. I didn't wait around to seewhether his best suit was there too."