Painting feet

One day at the clinic Sister Isa asked me to paint feet. You see the feet for the prostheses are “band-aid beige” and the patients are not. There are a number of prostheses stored at the clinic which belong to patients who haven’t taken them home yet because they haven’t quite mastered walking with them. These prostheses were available for painting. In preparation for painting I retrieved the prostheses from storage, removed the shoes, and carefully kept the given shoe with its respective leg. Sister Isa made a point of telling me that if I mixed up the shoes I would have to sort it all out latter. No small feat! (pun intended)  Ultimately, I spray painted six or seven feet a “dark chocolate” brown. As I painted the feet I thought of our Holy Thursday ritual of feet washing; remembering Jesus’ call to service. I was anonymously tending to the feet of the patients. Our hope is that this simple act will help the people to accept their prosthesis as part of themselves, help them to be whole. Latter in the day I walked and talked with Margaret, a tall, young, beautiful Haitian woman who lost her right leg above the knee in an autobus accident. I wondered if she noticed that the foot in her shoe was “dark chocolate” brown.