They are not special nor are they remarkable. They are just two little pennies that I found in September while we were getting mom's house ready for the Auction sale that cleaned out the final items in the house.
The two pennies had been sitting on a shelf above Dad's workbench in the basement, likely since he put them there 45 years ago ... They were tucked back against the cement wall with items that I don't ever remember moving or touching ... given the dates, I would imagine Dad took them out of his pocket and put them on the shelf while he was puttering around the workbench, and there they sat until I found them 45 years later and put them in my pocket and carried them home ...
They have no monetary value beyond the 2 cents they are worth. But the value they carry because I can place them in Dad's hand sometime before he died, makes them precious ... I've tucked them in a simple wooden box I bought for mom when I was touring the Middle East during my University years, and that she used to store mementoes I had given her over the years ... in the box along with the pennies are a cheap wooden and plastic crucifix I bought for a shekel from a Coptic Priest sitting at the back of the 'Tomb of Jesus' in the Church of the Holy Sepluchre in Jerusalem, a mother-of-pearl brooch I bought her in Cairo, and other assorted odds and ends I had given her over the years ... like the pennies, none of the items are valuable in and of themselves, but because now, two years after her death, I can open the box and remember her and the moments in time when I gave her those trinkets, they are precious.
They are precious because Mom put them aside in a special box that in turn sat on her dresser amid the other items that were important touchstones to her ... every once in awhile when it is quiet, I open the box and let my finger run over the assorted items contained within it, and I smile ... they may not be valuable, but they are important ...
... my two cents'!!!
1 comment:
I love your story. I remember when I discovered my first Canadian penny. Not sure how it ended up in my piggy bank. Oh, how it intrigued me.....a whole other country. To me...growing up in a small East Texas town, Canada was as foreign and mysterious as any place I suppose. I too have those Canadian pennies along with other coins from other countries in a small collection of coins I've carried with me from place to place. I have two cents too!
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