I was clearing out the hall closet, the one we just stuff things into, when I found the box.
Patent leather loafers, still with the tissue paper. Bought for our 40th anniversary dinner, the one at the Italian place downtown.
My wife came down with shingles the week before. We canceled. I never even took the shoes out of the box.
Then my hand hit the stack of books my neighbor Frank loaned me before he moved to Arizona. Two years ago. I keep meaning to mail them.
I sat down on the floor and thought about the bus driver who worked the last route I took before I retired from the phone company.
He was a quiet man, always nodded. On my last night he said, 'Forty-one years is a good run.' Shook my hand.
I never thanked him properly. Never said goodbye beyond that.
The shoes never touched the restaurant floor. The books never went back. And I never got to tell that driver he was right.
Some things you keep because they still have a little left in them, even if the moment is gone.