 | The Saddest Thing I OwnA collection of life's saddest objects, their sad stories, and our reasons for holding onto these sad things. |
Child's Shoe, Half A Pair
Posted On Tuesday October 30, 2007 By MeGo (Melissa Gould)Child’s shoe, left foot, six inches long. Very old, the leather is hard and brittle. The shoe has been repaired many times and has had a piece of leather added over the toebox in a Frankenstein line of stitches. Toe has a slight hole in it so you can see the layer of leather underneath. The sole has three pieces of metal nailed to the front area, forming a horseshoe. From the flea market in Linz, Austria. Among other old things on a table sat this shoe and two others in a row, all the left foot, in graduated sizes. Equally worn and mended. The family was probably very poor. I think the child only had one foot, the left one. Maybe there was a partial right leg. I doubt he or she lived past the age at which the largest shoe on display was worn. I should have bought the other two..
Tags: boy, broken, child, death, disabled, disease, family, girl, handmade, illness, loss, missing, pain, poverty, sad, scars, shoe, single, used
The Saddest Thing I Own is a 2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It is supported by the Jerome Foundation in celebration of the Jerome Hill Centennial and in recognition of the valuable contributions of artists to society.
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