Pennies and DImes (03-17-08)

While many of the good people of this community take advantage of spring break to get out of town for a little vacation, I have vowed to use the time for a little spring cleaning.

Well, in the course of my cleaning, I dealt with several unpacked boxes. Yes, I know, we have lived here for the better part eighteen months, and one would think we had finished unpacking. However, there are still a few boxes filled with stuff that has not been needed or has been forgotten and allocated to a space on a shelf in the garage.

One such box revealed an assortment of stuff for the car. A bottle of anti-freeze and a can of engine cleaner, and an almost full bottle of Armor All Leather Care.

Recently, the sleeve of my brown leather coat had become splotched with some substance that I can only guess as to be milk, probably from a leaky baby bottle. The bottle of Leather Care promised to clean as well as condition.

So tonight, I set to the task to clean and condition my old leather coat. As I was almost finished, I had a thought to clean inside the front pockets, as they are entirely leather. Upon swiping out one such pocket, my fingertip rubbed painfully again something small, round, and unyielding. Carefully, I reached in and extracted four small coins: two pennies and two dimes.

For a second, I could not breath. I just stared at the coins in disbelief.

The reason for my small wonder at such a commonplace discovery has to do with my parents. You see, after my father passed away, my mother was forever finding pennies. She would see them in places familiar and expected as well as strange and unusual. She would happen to glance at just a place on the sidewalk where a single penny would be glinting in the sun, or she would find a single penny under a plate or cup, or there would be a penny in a drawer or on a shelf that she would have sworn was empty or bare.

She told my sisters and I that they pennies were sent by dad, as a little reminder that he was watching over her. Pennies from heaven, she would say with an air of calm certainty.

After my mother passed away, I am now forever finding dimes. It began with the packing of her apartment. I found a dime just lying on the floor of her bedroom, and then found another in a box I was packing.

I found one in the U-Haul and at least one more made its appearance in one of the pieces of furniture we brought back to Hill City.

These, I think, must be from my mother. My wife, Tonia, made the connection at the birthday of our youngest, Natalie. We continue a tradition passed down for generations in my mother’s family of placing a dime (well cleaned) hidden in the birthday cake. According to the tradition, the dime grants the finder of the dime good luck for a year.

I don’t know where this tradition of placing money in a cake originates. Mom was half Czech, so maybe it is a Czech tradition.

What I do know is that I have been finding dimes in a lot more places than just birthday cakes. And every time I find a dime in an unexpected place, I think of mom.

So tonight, I was more than a little awed to find two dimes and two pennies. Maybe I am just twenty-two cents richer as a result of spring-cleaning. But I prefer to think of these coins as something more. Perhaps, both my mother and my father wanted to send me a message. Perhaps they wanted me to know that after so many years apart, they are finally reunited. I can’t help but feel that after so much pain, they may finally be at peace. And maybe, the finding of four coins is meant to tell me that, together, my parents still watch over my three sisters and I. They are watching and waiting, and sending the occasional reminder that, while they may be dearly missed, they are not altogether gone.

They remain in our hearts and in our minds, and in the pennies and dimes that turn up just when we least expect.