My Mother's Feet

Since my post yesterday on shoes that fit, I have been thinking about feet.  Specifically my mother’s feet and what aspects of them I inherited.

Growing up, I remember looking at my mother’s feet and tell myself I hoped my fourth toes would never curl under the third toes the way hers did.  I hoped to God I would never have the painful corns between my toes that she had, or if I did that I would have the good sense to go to a podiatrist and get professional care.  She was never a good shopping partner because she was always having to sit down with aching feet.

I’m convinced that the painful aspects of her feet were from wearing the wrong shoes for the first half of her life.  When in older age she switched to comfortable shoes, the pain seemed to go away.

But as I look at my feet today, I definitely see my mother’s fourth toes.  I also see about 3 nails that no amount of polish can make beautiful.  It’s as if they went on strike and decided to grow tall instead of long.  My latest podiatrist says there is nothing to be done about them.  

It really doesn’t matter since my days of fun sandals seem to be in the past.  Nobody much sees my feet except me and I’m used to them.  I like them in their happy, somewhat ugly state.  They have signed on to take me around Thailand and that’s all I require right now.


(I should have taken a picture of my feet instead of using the easy way out Google image, which happened to be a photo of quite nice feet.)