The shoes

They're all lined up, each one with its story, I look at them, I recognize them. The first is a pink bootee, my mother used to say I was between 6 and 8 months old; next to it a little corduroy shoe I used to try my first steps.

Then come some little sneakers, almost new, for going to daycare but they soon got too small for me.

Now I look at the little brown shoes, worn but shiny, they went with me to school, 1st grade, a starched white smock with a big bow in back, they also went with me through the change of schools, private school, uniform and black shoes, and I got to be flag escort.

There are the white shoes, yes, from my first communion, a big disappointment. "The whole class in uniform," the principal's order, mom accepted it, and that was the end of the dream of the white dress with tulle, white gloves, I didn't accept it. The principal won.

Things changed at home, dad lost the good job he had and took something less important, mom started sewing for other people; I had to go into the state high school, a change of classmates but luckily my best friend Luisa decided to go on with me in high school. I suggest starting to work, don't even think about it.

You all have to study to succeed in life. What I had left from primary school was a little commemorative medal and a little diploma.

Now in the line are the silver shoes, with a little heel, yes, what you're thinking. My 15th birthday. The party at home with great sacrifice, I remember we emptied our bedroom so we'd have room to dance, girls and boys from both schools, I danced all night, but the shoes ended up under a chair and me barefoot but happy.

We got to university, Luisa invites me to a surprise party, the engineering boys her brother studies with throw it, and since in our program most of us are girls, of course I'm the first one invited. "I can't go, I don't have the right clothes or shoes" mom steps in and tells me "I'll fix up a dress for you and you'll see how modern it looks on you."

Luisa says: "well, I have some strappy sandals, if they're a little small on you it won't show because your toes can stick out the front."

What I didn't expect happened, the straps broke, now they're part of my collection. I'll tell you that at that party I met Ernesto, I stayed sitting in a corner, I couldn't dance, I would have left but I had to wait for Luisa and her brother. Embarrassment made me hide my feet under the chair.

Ernesto came over and said to me "What's wrong with Cinderella, did she lose her glass slipper?"

It was love at first sight, I told him what had happened, he burst out laughing and told me "Take off the other one and we'll dance barefoot, I promise not to step on those pretty little feet."

We danced all night.

You know which shoes come next? Yes, the white ones from my wedding, and to finish the row is the bootee of my first child.

The story should end here, but I couldn't erase the image of a mountain of shoes of every size and color that will never be able to tell their story because they're the mountains from the extermination camps. I think that when in the morning we put on our shoes and start walking we have to be glad because a lot of people don't have that luck.