The other day on my way home from school I stopped at a convenience store to get a snack. On my way into the store, a brief glimmer caught my eye. It was dull and reddish in color, and my attention was drawn to its source, a shiny, lonely, lost but now found penny, hiding in the gutter. Many pass these lost coins nowadays and disregard them and their minimal value, but for me, even though the purchase power of a penny is so little in these times, it is still worth the energy to pick it up, and so I did.
Once down there, I was surprise to see that the lonely penny wasn’t lonely at all; three well tarnished brothers of his were nearby. I collected all four and gave them a new home in my pocket. How odd, I thought, to find four pennies at once. I stood tall and reoriented myself to my surroundings, and entered the store to continue on with my day. While pouring a drink at the fountain, I was still thinking about the pennies. Only one time before can I remember finding four pennies at once… and that was a decade and a half before.
"Four Cents" by flickr user JeremyBrooks
In the economy of the late eighties and early nineties, raising a family was hard for my parents. They each worked hard to do it the best they could, though. My Mom worked full-time to pay most of the bills and then cared for the kids while my Dad worked three part-time jobs and went to school. He flunked out of university courses, due to a mix of his long aversion to traditional education and the strain of juggling life as a young, low income parent and school. He found a second chance for an education at a private alternative university, a new thing in those days. My mom was concerned that a degree from an institution like his wouldn’t count in the real world, but they were assured to the contrary, and essentially lied to. Bachelor’s degree in hand, he couldn’t find a job in his field, and Dad went back to being an hourly assistant manager at a restaurant, educated and underpaid, but happy. Happier, even, when he had his two days off a week, on Monday and Tuesday, to spend with his family.
1993 was host one of the hottest summers ever in Phoenix. Some days it exceeded 120 degrees, and it seemed like the city shut down. Even the airport stopped working, as flights were cancelled due to concerns that the heat would endanger jumbo-jet flights. People stayed indoors whenever possible. One Monday morning that unforgiving summer, Dad awoke us kids before sunrise and instructed us to get dressed… in jeans. We protested, I am sure, probably whining that it would be too hot for jeans. We didn’t understand that, where we were going, we needed jeans.
My Dad’s spontaneity (or impulsiveness–depending on who you ask) made my childhood exciting. Days like this, where we’d pack up and go somewhere without warning, occurred with regularity throughout those years. We’d sometimes be gone, without warning, for days on end. During my early teens, my friends couldn’t understand how we could do that, but I’d say the same words of their rigid school, sports, and karate schedule instead. This spontaneous day trip was before those more complicated times, though, and is actually one of the first such crazy trips I have memories of. This day, we got in the car headed the mountains where the air was cooler and my siblings and I needed jeans, to a town with a funny name in high country of Arizona, where the heat was less and the air was fresh.
We arrived in the town with the funny name and had breakfast. “Where are we dad?”, we’d ask. “Strawberry!”, he’d reply, and then we kids would giggle. I don’t remember much of that day, but I can never forget the miracle after breakfast. Shortly after we left the rustic roadside cafe where we had breakfast, while we were still walking the parking lot to our family car, my brother found a penny on the asphalt. He was 6 at the time, and I 7, and we were both at an age where a penny was a fortune and finding one was a highlight of your day. I was envious of his find, and wished I’d found it first. But my jealousy was short-lived, because just left of his shoe was a second penny, and this one was mine. Careful not tip him off, I dove down for it, and bounced back with my own penny. Now both of us were celebrating, likely with cheers and laughter. My four year-old sister who was trailing behind us began walking in circles around the parking lot, obviously looking for her own. Dad suggested we be good brothers and help her.
By now, my Mom and baby sister, who had fallen behind the rest of the pack, made their way to the parking lot. My brother and I shared our find with Mom, and soon all six of us were hunting for two more pennies. It didn’t take long for my middle sister to find her penny, and she too cheered. Though only two, baby sister wanted in on the fun too. While I doubt she understood the value of a penny (ha, like I really did at that time anyway!), she wanted one too, perhaps just so she could join the not-so-elusive club of lucky siblings that special morning. A few moments later, my Dad called my baby sister over to where he was standing, and pointed out a fourth penny.
I looked up to see that my soda had overflowed. The fizzy liquid spilling on my hands had brought me back to reality. I smiled, and began cleaning up the mess I’d made. I was happy, though not because of the happy memory now in the forefront of my mind, but because 14 years gave me a new perspective on that day. I realized that it was no miracle that four pennies, one for each of us, happened to be on the ground in Strawberry, Arizona. I realized that instead of it being a miracle, it was instead a testament to my father’s love for his kids. He made sure they all had a fair share. He obviously planted those other two pennies. Because he loved us. Because the value of sharing our joy with us was worth far more than the two pennies weighing down his pockets.
Like I said, back then we didn’t have much, the down economy and structural underemployment of my father made sure of it, but we did have love, and a father who enjoyed us as his children. Back then we had my dad, whose pennies were worth more than gold to his children, and thats all that mattered.
Today it has been over a year since I have seen my Dad. It has been even longer than that since I have known him. His body now is like a spoilt onion, each layer more disgusting than the next. Though his body still walks the earth and his blood still flows through the veins, and it still identifies itself with the same name of my father’s, the soul of my father, my dad, dad has been long gone and no pennies would it drop on the ground for me.
I hold out hope though, at least for his salvation, at most for a chance to thank him and love him once more. I know that underneath the façade of lies that disguises his illness—his addictions—and its disgusting symptoms, inside his shell, hiding in the shadow of his overwhelming ego, is a bruised and battered soul; a soul that is lost, a soul that is hurting, a soul that loves me still and that I love. As the shell comes to term with its mortality, and its demons come to term with their fates, I pray that his soul finds peace. I pray, regardless of how much of a long shot it is, that before its too late, my dad conquers his disgusting life and comes back to me. And when he does, I’ll have all the pennies in the world to give him, tokens of our love and relationship, tokens he kept in his pocket for when
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