Did Your Ever Think About Dirty Feet?

This is from a blog by a Creative Memories consultant, CreativeMemories Why? blog. I thought it was the perfect example of taking an experience that most people don't even give a second thought to and showing how dirty feet can show how much you love something or someone. Enjoy!
I am not a barefoot kind of person. I wear slippers in hotels, sandals on the beach and garden clogs in the yard. I think flip flops are too little, stilettos too much, and felted clogs, are ‘just right.’ I don’t obsess about feet, but I have noticed that dirty feet are often an act of love.
Think about it. When your feet are dirty, beyond normal, really pitifully dirty, it is because you are so in love with the activity you throw caution to the wind, jump in with both feet, wallow in the mud and live every moment.
When was the last time your feet were truly dirty? Not just the kind of dirty you get from a day in shoes on city streets--- I am talking about really muck and mud dirty. The kind of dirt you have to wash off before you walk into the house. The kind of dirt that would make your mother give you a lecture. Or, as in in the case of my husband, makes your grandmother wash your 7 year old feet with Clorox. Those were some flood water dirty feet and she was taking no chance!
FDM Dawn Edens says the last time her feet were that dirty it was all her 14 year old son Caleb’s fault.
And, it was an act of love.
You see, Caleb participates in civil war reenactments. He participates in them with such gusto that during the last year he has moved up in rank from being a dead soldier on the field to setting off a cannon. He talks his family into attending reenactments both near and far. Caleb has learned history, met interesting people and been part of something that he truly loves. On one trip this summer, Dawn drove Caleb from their home in Houston, Texas to Baldwin, Mississippi so he could take part in the battle for Brice’s Crossroads. Here in the north I had no idea this battle was so important, but it apparently is. Anyway. It rained. It poured. It rained some more. The field was trampled by soldiers, spectators, and horses. The horses did more than trample, they deposited, what we call in my neck of the woods, meadow muffins. All of this stirred together to make the going treacherous for Dawn, who was wearing the only shoes she had packed, flip flops.
After 3 hours of muck, mud and worse, Caleb looked down at Dawn’s feet and said “Mom, I know you really love me, do you know why? Not because you bought me a root beer. Not because you traveled all the way to Mississippi so I could attend this battle. I know that you love me because you are willing to stay out here in this bad weather and walk around in just flip flops. Your dirty feet show me how much you love me.”
Dawn says “My heart melted. Tears came to my eyes and then I chuckled. I loved his explanation of love. You see, it’s not about the things we buy or even the things we say. It’s about action. My dirty feet showed him that I loved him.”
Dawn made Caleb a wallet sized album that began with clean feet, ended with dirty feet and on every page captures how much she loves him. She told him he can carry it with him everywhere and if he ever doubts her love he could just take a look at her dirty feet.
Because Caleb is a 14 year old boy I doubt he shows the guys in the locker room his mom’s dirty feet but I bet he pulls out that album on the days he needs a motherly hug, and probably when he is laying ‘dead’ on the field and it makes him feels better.
And that is why we do what we do.
When have your feet looked like Dawn's?