Let the right one in and if he buys you shoes: marry him.

Some things you just know.

I’ve been doing a lot of closet clearing these days.

How much stuff do I need when the plague is looming large right outside somewhere?

It is a ritual I have done every year since I can remember from Thanksgiving through New Year’s to start fresh. There are a few things that while I may not wear them anymore have a special meaning for me. When I was in my basement walk-in I took a look at these again and thought about the guy I was married to for close to half my life and has been gone now for eight years.

And I tell him often how lucky he is not to be here right now.

Mark and I as a couple were less likely to go shopping than roller-skating, biking, hiking, dancing or beach-walking. Mark enjoyed being outside as do I, the beauty of nature, the challenge of a steep hill with city buses whizzing by or the mystery of why sea-birds all face the same way as the wind blows, together by species just hanging out there on the sand.

So it was an unusual evening that we spent in what used to be Abraham and Straus in downtown Brooklyn a few weeks before we were to be married in 1986. We were there to upgrade some outerwear for Mark. He had a soft blue two piece storm coat, it had a short under -jacket, the sleeves zipped off to become a vest and a longer over jacket and a nice roomy hood, the label inside said Bruce Jenner for SIM. Bruce Jenner was an Olympic decathalon gold medalist, of course he had a clothing line.

Mark knew how to pick well-made, practical and good looking clothes and his Bruce Jenner storm coat could not be more well-made and practical.

As his soon-to be new bride I thought it might be time for a more “updated” look, not to get rid of the Bruce Jenner (as we called it) but to have something a little more “spiffy” like a bomber jacket that while still practical, looked a little more stylish.

Mark was one to buy the best that he could afford, preferably on sale so he could get an even better brand, but mostly he preferred to get things for others rather than for himself.

On this particular evening over 30 years ago, we got into Mark’s shiny blue Chevy Malibu, a perfect car for a guy who drove everyday to East New York, Brooklyn to his job as a school principal, from our (then) apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn to Downtown Brooklyn to A&S where I once worked in the cosmetics buying office.

Strolling though A&S we passed the women’s shoe department and right away Mark could see my eyes glaze over, I was mesmerized by the shoes.

“Do you want to look in here?” Mark asked me.

“Oh, no, we are here to find you a new jacket, this isn’t about me.” I said. I could feel the magnetic pull of the shoes as I walked into the department on auto-pilot and starting browsing. Somehow magically I found myself seated trying on shoes and modeling them for a bemused Mark.

I tried on a pair of red suede ghillie pumps with a Louis heel, “I like those a lot on you, how do they feel?” Mark asked.

They felt great. “Why don’t you get them and what about those shoes that look like cars, kind of artsy right?”

“Of course right hon”, I thought.

Within a few minutes Mark and I left the shoe department with 3 pairs of brand new shoes for me. And oh, yes he did get a new khaki bomber jacket that he looked very handsome wearing.

Mark would have bought me the whole shoe department if that would have made me happy. (And why not, everything was 25 % off. )

That’s how it went for 26 years. Mark gave me all that I wanted (lucky for him I didn’t need a Rolls Royce) but the heart of the matter is this.

It wasn’t about the things he gave me, it was about the life he gave me.

Like the shoes that we got that night which in hindsight was a clue to what kind of husband he would be.

Generous. Thoughtful. Open. Fun to be with. Patient. And sometimes cranky too. No one is perfect.

Mark gave me all that I needed to become the person I wanted to be. And I still have the shoes we bought that night and I wear the red suede Louis heels And before all the madness that is 2020, I would always get a compliment when I wear them.

Sadly these days with the pandemic waiting for vaccinations to be available and I mostly wear a pair of Skechers but whenever I want I can go peek at my shoes and enjoy the memories again.

To me those shoes and the memory of how I got them are treasure from a moment in time that said so much about the man I was about to marry.

You are missed.

9/18/2012

Originally published at http://fancynancysays.com on December 23, 2013.