25¢ Inheritance
Fatherhood is an emotional journey, yet one enveloped in an even more emotionally charged one, life. We are passed through this journey in the mere blink of an eye and most of the time we don’t dare to stop and contemplate the transitory nature of our lives until those big moments happen that make us take stock of things. One of the more notable of these events is birth and it’s twin, death. Today marks the birth of one of the more notable people in my life, and I shall celebrate that. Because he’s the one that not only gave me life but taught me much of what it was to be a father. And though bittersweet the significance of this day, I’m enough of my father’s son to give voice to it in a way that I think he would approve.
A simple man, my dad. A simple call and a birthday wish was all he wanted on his day. Presents were difficult to say the least, because it is simply impossible to buy a man something when he professes to have everything he wants. Invariably, anything you gave him was either a tool, and one that he would use until it simply wore out, or something with a little meaning behind it. In our case it was little trinkets. Not worth much in monetary terms but priceless in their connection to one another. Pocket knives and some other odds and ends. The simplicity of them in complete opposition to the amount of thought that accompanied each one. It became a tradition. I found that no matter how many I had, I looked forward to the next because it is, indeed, the thought behind the gift that mattered. As I aged, the significance of this didn’t lessen, it grew. Those gifts became my favorite moments on birthdays and Christmases. Both in giving and receiving.
Alas, there will be no more knives. No more trinkets. And no more calls to say Happy Birthday, Dad.
The days after his passing found me going through his things and setting each aside to be passed on to someone else, discarded or kept. A task I performed with my mother through sometimes quiet tears and sometimes chest wracking sobs. It’s a task I don’t envy anyone. It seems as when one passes, the significance of everything they touched and owned is imbued with the memories of the one who possessed it. Each item was a reminder that the memory behind that particular one was cut brutally and permanently off.
The last room, however, contained a surprise. A box, as simple in nature as the man who owned it. Nondescript and unlabeled and had we been in great haste it would’ve been quite easy to just push it aside and move on. As I opened it, the glitter of brass and copper glinted in kaleidoscopic brilliance though the tears I couldn’t ever quite wipe away. I pulled aside tissue and papers and found his name tag and badge, polished until the name was faint and barely discernible. Then more badges, honorary and newer ones that he wouldn’t dare wear because he was too modest to show such outrageous extravagance. Coins of various nature lay below those. and doubtless they held meaning for him, he was like that. When I departed for boot camp then overseas, my dad gave me a quarter so that I knew I could always call home, if I needed him.
Over thirty years later I still have that quarter, man, I wish I could use it now.
The box was an archeological dig, each layer more precious than the last and seemingly packed in a way that protected his most valued possessions. At the bottom, to my great surprise, was a collection of pocket knives. Knives I remembered giving him as a young boy to knives we’d exchanged as adults to one I’d given him just a couple years before. Oiled and wrapped, and apparently carried to this room and placed in it’s spot beneath the other things he treasured. Never used. Worthless and priceless at the same time depending on your viewpoint. Mine is obvious.
They sit beneath my bed now. Wrapped in more clean tissue and cloth awaiting their passage into the hands of my children and I hope they appreciate the significance of this. One day, they’ll be passed with a story and a memory to my children, but for now I’ll enjoy them a while longer. I’ll relive the moments they were passed along and the Christmases and Father’s Days and birthdays in which they traded hands.
As fathers, we are always passing lessons to our children. Many are spoken, but a greater sort are lessons of an unspoken nature however unintentional they might be at the time. In his wisdom and much like the quarter, I think my dad knew that one day I’d need that way to speak to him. And he knew that each one was a priceless memory that I could reflect on, as he did I have no doubt. Simple trinkets, but steeped in the history of a man and his child.
So I’ll continue that tradition with mine. And doubtlessly they won’t appreciate it as much now as they will one day, when I am long passed from this mortal plain. They will, however, construct those memories in the same way I did with my dad and fill days like today that would normally be ones of grief and a sense of loss with gratitude and thankfulness.
So let that be a lesson dads. The trinkets and toys, the gifts and the cards are, at the end of this road, worthless to the world. But man oh man, those memories. Priceless. All these years later and the most priceless possession I own is a box of pocket knives. And a quarter I could always use to speak to my dad.
And lo and behold, it works.
