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The Feast of All Souls

In 1971 my mother and father and brother took a trip to England. My brother was seven years old at the time and it was the first really big vacation they’d ever taken together. Sometime before they left on that trip, someone advised them that when they took pictures, they should have them developed as slides. It was easier to share them that way, and vacation slides were a very popular idea at the time. My parents dutifully took many rolls of film, and when they came home they had them magically turned into several carousels’ worth of slides. My mother, a thorough and deliberate person, actually labeled the carousel cards with what the images were, so that in the years to come they could refer back to the cards as the memories faded. In 1978, when I was six years old, the family took another trip to England, this time with me and my grandmother as well. Once again, we came back with roll upon roll of film that we had developed as slides. The carousels stacked up in the hall closet with the ones from the 1971 trip, little piles of memory.

Over the years, after the second trip, it became a sort of tradition to get out the England slides and look at them. This usually happened at least once a year; I’m certain that sometimes it happened only because I whined until we watched them. (Though honestly, no one ever minded watching them.) We would watch the 1978 pictures because they were newer and fresher and because we all remembered it, but sometimes we would watch the slides from the earlier trip too. When I was very young I was mainly only interested in the ones that involved me, but as I grew older I found it a lot of fun to look at the older slides. My parents and brother looked so different, way back before I was born! Look at the funny clothes! Look how silly their hair was!

One time, when it had been a while since we had watched any of the slides, we sat down and watched them all – the 1971 trip and the 1978 trip. As we went through the 1971 trip, the stories were told again, the same familiar ones I’d heard as they tried to share the memories even though I hadn’t been there. But this time, for whatever reason, there was a new story. Maybe my parents decided I was finally old enough. Maybe they’d had a glass of wine or two. Maybe they simply forgot they hadn’t told me before.

At the end of a long day’s drive, my mother and father and brother reached the hotel at Exmouth. My conscientious, plan-ahead father of course had reservations for them. A double room, with a bed for Mom and Dad and a bed for my brother. Only this time there was a problem. This time when they arrived, the reservation had been lost. What were they to do? They were tired, they had a young son, they did not want to drive far or long to try to find another hotel. The manager tried to help them and said that he could give them two single rooms, as all the doubles were booked. My parents were skeptical, and asked if a cot could be brought into a single room for my brother. Apparently my brother wanted none of this. He had heard “two single rooms” and decided he wanted his own.

My memory of this telling is imperfect, and their own memories of that night were probably also imperfect, but what it came down to was: They were tired and my brother wore them down. With assurances from the manager that their son would be safe staying a few rooms away, my parents took a single room for themselves.

In those days, many hotels would apparently shine your shoes if you left them out overnight for housekeeping. My father, a lifelong fan of the penny loafer, left his pair out that night. When he collected them the next morning they were freshly shined and the two American pennies had been replaced with two shiny ha’pennies. My father was not a very materialistic guy, but he was a complete Anglophile, and he kept those pennies in his shoes as a souvenir. He was also very sentimental. In the coming months they would learn that their alone time on that trip meant something else very special to them. About nine months after that night my brother wanted his own room, I was born. My father still had the pennies. He kept them always, and told me the story, and when it came time he told me that I was to have them.

Now I do. They are tarnished and I cannot read the year or make the image of the Queen out very clearly. Those two grotty pennies are about the most precious things I own. I have spoken to a jeweler that I know and trust and soon I will take them to him, and we’ll figure out a way to make them into a pendant that I can keep with me. My father may have kept track of two small pennies for 38 years, but I worry about my ability to do the same.

At the end of it all, my father didn’t place a lot of value on material things, but he poured a lifetime of love into the story of those two pennies. I’ll have them made into a necklace that can always be close to my heart.

November 2, 2009 · Jen · 4 Comments
Tags: dad, stories · Posted in: family

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