A Sweet Memory

One of my sweetest childhood memories may surprise you: It's wearing SOCKS. 
Not just any socks: It's wearing socks that I had torn apart and my grandmother then sewed them back together for me. For years, my parents didn't get new pairs of socks for me, no, I would wear the same ole' pairs that had stitches all over them. In every step I would feel the stitches in the bottom of my foot, or sometimes on my big toe.

You must be wondering why this is a sweet memory and not a rough one. 
After all - it's out of poverty and necessity that usually people sew torn socks. BUT this memory is sweet to me because when I think of my grandmother sitting there and carefully hand stitching a little girl's socks - her granddaughter's - I can't help but smile and feel loved and cared for.
Did she wonder how I tore my socks playing in the yard? Goofing around? Making my little plays? Dancing, running, pranking the adults? Did she ponder on my life as a child in those socks? Did she try to be in my shoes, or more like... in my socks? What was she thinking as she was fixing my socks for me? Did she know I one day will wonder what this was like for her? 

I think in her own way, be it conscious or unconscious, she prepared me for the ground I had to walk upon. And maybe there was a message in this act of love:
'Remember that with every step you make, others cared for you and prepared you for the journey.' 

Maybe I wasn't given fancy new socks,
​but I was given something a lot more precious: LOVE.