By Shannon Penrod
There is an old saying that you don’t really know a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. I don’t know if that’s true but it’s had me thinking the last few weeks. With the change of seasons I’ve been pulling clothes out of plastic bins in the garage trying to find clothes the right temperature and the right size, not necessarily easy for me. That’s when I came across Elizabeth’s pants.
Elizabeth was someone I met a little over a decade ago. She was funny, intelligent and giving. She had recently undergone a transformation where she had lost over 100 pounds. I didn’t know her when she was heavy, but she showed me pictures and I was amazed. I had over 100 pounds to lose and all I could think was that if she could do it, I could too. I started on a journey to follow in her footsteps never believing that I could lose 100 pounds, but I did. As the weight was coming off Elizabeth would give me her cast off clothes. She didn’t need them anymore and she told me it was foolish to spend money on clothes when I was just going to lose more weight.
There was one pair of pants that she gave me that I simply fell in love with. They were black with little white stick figures all over them. I wore them until they literally fell off of me because my butt had gotten too small to hold them up. Then I had the bright idea to shrink them so I could keep wearing them. It worked although they were now Capri pants. It didn’t matter. The places I went in those pants! I lived a new life in a thinner body that was frequently clad in Elizabeth’s pants.
As time went on both Elizabeth and I lost so much weight that our lives were forever changed. She got married and moved away, I got married and stayed behind. We both had children and struggled with losing the pregnancy weight. With our lives so full we fell out of touch and somehow the shrunken pants found their way into storage, waiting for some distant summer when they might fit again.
Then came the tragic news that Elizabeth had died, way before her time, way before the world was done with her. I still can’t imagine a world with out Elizabeth, even though she has been gone for more than two years. Then the other day I happened upon the pants. It was like reuniting with an old friend. I couldn’t wait to wear them. I put them on and was dismayed, they don’t fit. They are too big, which would seem like something to celebrate but they aren’t just ill fitting in size, they no longer fit my life. I walked a mile in Elizabeth’s pants when I was unmarried, with no children. To wear them now seemed to somehow deny all that Elizabeth and I had learned on our journey to lose weight and gain the lives we longed for.
Like so many other things in life it is time to let go of Elizabeth’s pants; so they are in a bag waiting for Helping Hands for the Blind to pick them up. I won’t ever forget Elizabeth; she gave me so much more than a pair of pants. But I did walk a mile in those pants and I will be forever better because of it.
What a wonderful post! You are such a fabulous writer. The end.