A ‘host mom’ tells a story …
Socks, a simple word that conjures up such powerful memories.
He was seven years old and homeless.
The day we picked him up, to host him for the next few weeks, we stopped at Target on the way home.
I asked him, “Do you want or need anything while we are here?”
He thought for a moment and then cheerfully said, “Socks!”
He beamed the whole time, as he carried his new packages of socks around the store.
We asked him a few times if there was anything else, anything at all, that he wanted or needed.
“No, just socks,” he said. “I really needed socks.”
Today, my little buddy has moved on in his journey.
But I still remember, as I folded his last few socks, fresh from the dryer, my eyes filled with tears.
It’s funny how you can love someone so much, that you basically just met.
Socks, I’ll never look at them the same way again.