Without a Mate

Funny how I was drawn to this sad, forlorn pink sock, lying in the grass in the middle of the park. I took my children to the playground because it was a sunny Saturday, and spring is so close you could reach out and touch it. And as I rounded up the kids and herded them towards the minivan, there it was, this lonely pink sock, looking terribly out of place on top of the crunchy dead grass and the drab brown leaves still left over from last fall.

One lonely pink sock.

I think I feel a little bit like this pink sock today, because I, too, am without my mate. My husband is out of town on business (this sounds funny to me, because he's not a business man, and he's barely out of town—a mere 17 miles away—but I digress). And I miss my husband when he's gone. And even though it was a great day in the sunshine with the kids, I couldn't help think to myself, He should be here. He should see our daughter trying the big slide, and see our boys wrestle rough-and-tumble in the wood chips, their giggles being carried on the breeze.

So I guess when I saw this pink sock lying there, I felt bad for it. Because it hadn't lived its full life yet. Unlike some of my kids' socks, this one had no holes and no gray, pilled surface on the bottom, and yet there it was, cast away completely forgotten and alone. Because who would want one pink sock? Even if it was the prettiest, brand new pink sock, who needs just one?

So, like I tend to do, I conjured in my mind the story of the lonely pink sock. I couldn't just let it lie there without a story, without some explanation of how it got to this place next to the weeping willow tree. I imagined a little girl with blond fly-away curls who was so excited at the first warm day of spring that she took off her shoes, then her socks, and dug her little pink toes into the cool earth and shivered and laughed because of the chill and the sheer pleasure of feeling skin against nature. And then her mother called to her, Time to go home! and then, seeing her barefoot, scolded, It's too chilly to be barefoot! Put your shoes on this instant! And in the literal sense that children hear their parents' commands, she quickly stepped back into her shoes, without first putting her two pretty socks on. Then, as an afterthought, she picked up her socks off the ground, first one, then the other, and ran to catch up with her mother. But in her rush, one of her socks slipped out of her pudgy fingers. And because one sock is so lightweight, so inconsequential and insignificant, she did not notice and continued running towards home.

And there it lay, and lays there still: a little bit crumpled but as bright at bubble gum, on the prickly grass in the intense sunlight.