The Little Yellow Rain Boots

He called them “my boats.” Aunt Angie gave them to him for Christmas 1999. She picked them up at a yard sale for about a quarter and thought he might like them. He was 18 months old.

He didn’t love them immediately, but day by day, week by week, his love grew until it was complete, devoted, and faithful. Before long, he wouldn’t wear anything else. He wore them to “school” with his play clothes and to Sunday school with his pretty clothes. He wore them to the grocery store with Mommy. He wore them until they were difficult to put on and take off. He wore them until he plainly said, “My boots.”

“They’re too little, Phillip. You’re a big boy. You need to wear shoes that don’t hurt.”

He wore them until little calluses grew on his tiny toes. He wore them until his piggies squealed in agony. Finally, he took them off and didn’t put them on again.

Aunt Angie had already found pair #2 at another yard sale. She was willing to pay whatever it took to save his feet—or at least a dollar. He graciously accepted the replacements, but he rarely left the house in them.

Everywhere he went, concerned grownups asked, “Where are your boots, Phillip?”

They were at home, displayed on the top of the cornice board over the front window in his bedroom. They’re still there, covered in more than a dozen years of dust.

In the summer of 2010, I took Phillip and his BFF Bradley to Toy Story 3. They carried Phillip’s Buzz and Woody dolls with them. (They call them "action figures," but they’re not.) One of my great regrets in life is that I don’t have a picture of the two 12-year-old boys, sitting spellbound at the movie, wearing their 3D glasses, holding those dolls.

At the end of the movie, Andy gave his toys to Bonnie, because he knew she would play with them. On his way to college, he stopped by the little girl’s house. She was outside in the yard with her parents. And she was wearing yellow rain boots.

Eleven years had passed since I had nursed the Boy, but I swear my milk came in.