B.C. man wears mismatched socks on journey after grief

VICTORIA -

Although this is not a story about socks, you should know Dave Morris’s are often mismatched.

“Most people just throw them away when they stop matching,” Dave says.

When one gets a hole in it, or one disappears in the dryer, most toss the two.

“But me,” Dave says with a laugh, before pulling up his leg to reveal one striped sock and one plaid. “I find new ways to match them.”

Losing a sock is one thing, losing a loved another.

“You know the stages of grief,” Dave begins. “There’s shock and denial.”

Dave says he was spared those feelings because his dad’s decline lasted so long, but he did feel gratitude that his then newborn son got to spend a whole year with him before he died.

“My dad got to hug him and sing to him,” Dave says. “And be a grandpa.”

But later, when Dave’s son was flipping through a book featuring photos of the boy with all his family members, he suddenly stopped on the page featuring a picture of him and his grandpa.

“And my son asked me, ‘Who’s that?’ He didn’t remember him,” Dave says. “And that was the moment where I really felt the loss of what we lost, that grandpa.”

And that’s when Dave began the healing process in his own unique way.

“I put grief into action,” Dave says. “Which is how I process everything.”

Dave runs the award-winning Paper Street Theatre Company and started creating a production about loss, called ‘Left and Grieving’ that runs through Oct. 26.

The show is completely improvised by Dave and his fellow cast members based on suggestions from the audience.

“I like the fact that we can use the joyful nature of improv to go into the darker place of grief,” Dave says. “(We) find ourselves exploring those stories that happen to all of us.”

And by shining a light on our darkest days, Dave is hoping to help others arrive at that final stage of grief — acceptance.

“The biggest saviour for me was sharing with people,” Dave says. “Not just keeping it to myself and letting it weigh me down, but talking about it.”

And discovering that after loss — like Dave’s socks — you can find new ways to move forward.

“I take the two that I have and put them together.”

Dave says he has a sock drawer filled with single socks that he looks forward to randomly pairing up every day. “I put them together and they always match in their mismatched way!”