Of Socks and Feet
The impermanence of what matters most
Penned Mar 19, 2025 by Penny Sue Denim
With grief, I’m wet behind the ears. Six months ago, cancer kidnapped my man. A year before that, anticipatory grief broke in uninvited, though I didn’t know its name at the time. And in case you’re wondering, anticipatory grief is no joke! It’s an ambiguous initiation into an awful reality, making you pine for simpler times even before the heist happens.
So, I’m a novice, still finding my footing. Before grief tackled me to the ground, I stored my head in the sand when it came to death. Heck, even when it came to sadness, mostly. This to my regret, ‘cause now I can’t unsee who I couldn’t be for the people around me in their darkest hours.
But then, pre-parenthood, I fancied myself the perfect parent too. Like everyone else, I dropped that illusion when I actually had kids.
If you know, you know. But if you don’t, you just. . . don’t.
Pre-grief, on the rare occasion when I allowed myself to ponder death, my curiosity drew me to a particular recurring thought. It may not have been frequent, but over nearly half a century the thought began to accumulate airtime.
What I grappled with was the stark reality that what exists only to serve us, here in our physical bodies—that’s what’s going to be left behind.
It’s almost unbearable to realize that though a sock finds its purpose only when paired with a foot, that very sock—or at least its threads—will long outlast the foot for which it was made.
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Everything is meaningless!” Ecclesiastes 12 (NIV)
~ ps denim
"A sock finds its purpose
only when paired with a foot.
That very sock
will long outlast
the foot for which it was made."
What remains
was never meant
to make sense
without what's gone.
That is the whole weight of it.
— AËLA
Penny—
Your piece brought me back to Ecclesiastes and Job almost immediately… those places in scripture where there is no avoidance, no polishing over reality, no premature redemption arc. Just wrestling. Just sitting with what it means to be human beneath the weight of impermanence and loss.
The line:
“If you know, you know. But if you don’t, you just… don’t.”
felt profoundly true to me.
Not dismissive… just honest. There are some things that cannot be understood intellectually. Grief initiates people into a kind of knowing that words alone cannot carry. No shame to those who have not walked that road. Honestly, I’m glad for them. But those who have recognize what you are saying immediately.
Your reflection on the sock outlasting the foot it was made for feels almost Ecclesiastes-like in its clarity. The ordinary object suddenly becomes unbearable because it reveals how fragile and temporary we are.
And yet somehow, pieces like this matter because they refuse to lie about the human condition. They tell the truth without trying to control the reader’s response or escape the tension too quickly.
“This is the way the world is sometimes.”
That honesty is sacred in its own way.
Thank you for sharing it.