I had no idea I connected so much emotion to socks until I found myself crying about them. I have, in my sock drawer, three pairs of Halloween socks, two pairs of Valentine socks, and a pair of Christmas socks. I also have cat socks and slightly used stripey socks. With the possible exception of one or both of the pairs of socks speckled with pink hearts, all of these were given to me by my grandmother, my dad's mom, the good grandma. She is dying.
I don't understand how such an intelligent, attractive genetic line could have survived such a crappy mixture of diseases. My grandmother, at 77, has survived breast cancer. She is the one who talks about taking food to the old people in her church. She waited in Maine for my bombadeer grandfather to return from the Pacific theater so that they could travel to Texas to find a place away from their families. If the doctors are right, and she has only a few weeks left, I won't be able to go to her funeral because I will be in Costa Rica, learning to speak Spanish and save the world from itself. I am so proud to have inherited her adventure, her wit, and her passion, and so fearful of her diseases, and finding myself attached to her socks.
