I wish I had saved all of those pennies. Bright and shiny... all of them looking so new, as if they'd been just minted and untouched by hundreds of hands as they passed from pocket to cash register and back to someone else's pocket and then on to another cash register.
The pennies were found in parking lots, always next to the driver's side of my car. All of them, as I've said, looking brand new, and all of them stamped with the date of the current year.
I found the last one this past Saturday, right on the ground by the door of my car. One could say that it was dropped there by the person getting into or out of the car parked on the left side of mine, but that wasn't possible the other day. I had parked next to one of those aisles which are reserved for the shopping carts, so there was no parked car to the left of mine. I had put all of my groceries into the trunk and front seat of my car, and had just wheeled the shopping cart to that plastic-bumper protected aisle, and as I approached the driver's door of my car there was the penny, just waiting for me.
I picked it up and looked at the date. 2015. A bright copper penny, devoid of scratches or marks, a new penny. How many has it been now? Ten? Twelve? At least. I picked up that penny and could just about hear my dad singing that old song "Pennies From Heaven...." He sang that song all the time when I was a kid, along with a bunch of other favorites of his. "When You Wish Upon a Star" was another of his favorites, and that song plays on my cell phone when it rings.
But the pennies.... a happy little coincidence, one would say. But are they?
When I was in grade school, daddy and I would walk up to the corner to the candy store to buy a newspaper or a pack of Lucky Strikes (he smoked at the time, not giving it up till the late 1960s). As my dad opened up the package of cigarettes, I'd be opening up a little bag of M&Ms.... and I'd see daddy toss out pennies or nickels or dimes on the ground in front of the store. The first time I saw him do that with the coins, I told him that he dropped some money on the sidewalk.
"I didn't drop it... I put it there. Maybe some little kid will come by and pick up that nickel and he can buy himself some candy with it." I thought that idea was so grand that I wanted to go back inside the store and watch from the window, so we could see the kid who found the money, and then see what kind of candy he would buy.
"That's not necessary," said my dad.... "We did the good deed.... we don't have to see who profits from it... it's good enough to know that someone will find the money and they'll pick it up if they need it." And off we would go, back home with the newspaper, the Lucky Strikes, and the M&Ms.
When my dad was still alive, I'd occasionally see coins dropped in parking lots and on sidewalks. All of the coins were stained and dirty, as if they'd been there through rain storms and then were stepped on by dozens upon dozens of shoes. I never picked up those coins, but they did remind me of the pennies, nickels, and dimes that my dad tossed to the ground so many years ago in Queens.
About three months after daddy passed away in 2008, the first shiny penny appeared out of nowhere next to the driver's side of my car, right in the driveway of our house. Bright and shiny, as if it had never been touched. I picked it up and looked at the date... 2008. That Christmas, I found another copper penny outside the supermarket... also bright and shiny new, dated 2008.... not a footprint on that penny even though the store was crowded with holiday shoppers and people had been going in and out of those doors all day.
With those first two pennies, I kept them in a little tray on my desk.... looking at them made me both happy and sad, and the song "Pennies From Heaven" would go through my mind in my father's voice. The memory of daddy singing that song got to be too sad, and I put the pennies into my purse and just used them for shopping.
By the time I found the sixth or seventh penny, I couldn't remember all the words to the song. All I could think of in my mind were the three words of the title. And the other day, when I found this last bright and shiny copper penny, I was very sad because I can no longer hear my dad's voice in my mind. I can tell you exactly how my dad always said hello to me when I called him on the phone, and I can remember word-for-word the particular way he would say good-bye after a phone conversation... but his voice.... where I used to hear his voice and his accent on certain words, and his laugh, that distinct voice memory is gone. I can say daddy's words over and over in my mind, but I'm hearing my own voice, not my dad's.
I thought the sound of my father's voice would stay with me longer. Much longer. Like forever.
Pennies from heaven. It's nice to think that the pennies I've found along the way were tossed there by my father... pennies for me to find, to remind me of his long-ago habit of dropping coins for little kids to find in front of the candy store.... a sweet reminder of one of his favorite songs. Bright and shining, as-new pennies that glowed copper in the sunlight, dropped down from heaven as a gift from my dad.
It's nice to think of those pennies in that way. So much more promising than just a happy little coincidence.
Yesterday was Father's Day. Now that daddy is gone, Father's Day is just another Sunday.
