LA Gear

Memoir

I was thirteen years old the summer of 1990 with my waterfall bangs (fringe for my friends in the UK), Bongo jeans, or ripped jean shorts with black spiderweb tights and Doc Martens. I wore whatever I thought was cool, which was usually what everyone else thought was cool, but extra.

LA Gear had become super popular in the late eighties, and most people I knew owned a pair. I had been rocking a pair of all-white British Knights that looked like they were made for the moon landing for a couple of years. I loved those shoes, but they were starting to look pretty worn when my best friend and I tagged along with my mom on a trip to the mall.

We were strolling through Harris’ when I spotted the most glorious pair of sneakers I had ever seen in my 13 and a half years. White LA Gears with these twisty, vent-like things that flashed hints of hot pink and black along the sides. They were rad AF, and I wanted them more than I had ever wanted a pair of shoes before.

My BFF and I held them, chatting excitedly about them and what they would look so cute with. The new school year was only weeks away, and everyone knows that rule #1 is, you gotta look fly. Unless it’s Fight Club, in which case we do not talk about it.

I showed my mom the shoes, gushing my excitement over them. She asked the salesperson to see them in a size 8 (my size at the time) and bought them.

For herself.

I raged in white hot silence in the back of the car on the way home. My bestie was stunned and mouthed WTF at me more than once as my mom drove. Mom and I wore the same size, but she never let me wear them. She was 45 years old and sporting a sneaker marketed for women and girls in their teens and early 20s. Of course, that wasn’t the worst part; it just made me madder. She had always been selfish, but this offense was especially hard for me to come to terms with.

Fast forward to 18 months ago. I am packing up my mother, who is now extremely dependent on me. I have spent six months in and out of hospitals with her, thousands of dollars out of my pockets, and she needs to move now because they’ve sold her complex yet again, and it’s losing its meal plan and security. It’s also a week away from Christmas. All of this to say, I was stressed and stretched pretty thin.

As I’m packing up her closet, I come across a shoe box with the LA Gear logo on it.

No fucking way.

Yes fucking way. THIRTY FIVE YEARS LATER, and she still has those shoes. Hasn’t worn them once since I brought her here in 2017. Lost almost all of her furniture and loads of antiques from her mother’s estate, but she still has those GD shoes.

I was exhausted, and in that exhaustion, finding them there, decades later, sent me into hysterical laughter. I bent over in her closet, crying laughing, alone, until I could compose myself and take a photo of them.

My mother is now 81. She wants to be buried, but she has no money. I supplement her income so she can live in a nice apartment, play bingo twice a week, and take all of the medications she needs to keep her alive. So, when she passes, she will be cremated.

Guess what she will be wearing.