It started with 75 cents. Three quarters on the seat of a Spokane Transit Authority bus picking up university students and employees from the stop behind the student union building. I was one of the first to board the late afternoon bus and when I scooted into a pair of seats on my left, the three coins gleamed against the blue, purple and gray fabric.
That was enough years ago now that I don't remember the exact date. I do know it wasn't snowing or particularly cold. The sun peering over the nearby residence halls filled the bus with cheer. I believe it was in Spring or early Summer of 2003.
Since then, I have found coins, usually pennies, with astonishing regularity. There was the 51 pennies scattered across the asphalt in front of a grocery store I passed every morning on my walk to the bus. Then there was a quarter wedged up against a building, under a wooden-slatted bench on the same route, but many months later. Last summer, I went through a phase of finding pennies folded in half. The best I can figure is that they heated up so thoroughly lying there abandoned on the roadway that when hit at just the right angle by a car tire, they bent like a taco. Or pita bread. I call them my pita pennies.
When I mention one of my finds to friends, they often ask if the penny was heads up. You know the saying - Find a penny heads up, all day long good luck? "No!" I reply with true glee. It was sunflower side up. The pillars of the Lincoln Memorial on the tails side reminds me of the uniform petals of a sunflower.
One of my high school classmates, Chris Harms, loved sunflowers. I learned this about the handsome, blond, surfer boy when we were about nine years out of school, nurturing our young careers, and building a friendship from what was mostly just an acquaintance while teenagers. He had spent several years post-college in the Peace Corps working in Africa, then later in the deep South for the U.S. Geologic Survey. Eventually, Chris migrated back to San Diego and called me one day out of the blue. "I want to get in touch with my roots," he said, then invited me to meet for beers.
Chris and I were sharing dinner some months later when my ex-girlfriend and her new love, the one she left me for, happened by our table. The new love was someone Chris and I attended junior high school with, so naturally she stopped to say hello. It was the first time I had seen the two of them together since my heart had been broken. I didn't say much, but as soon as they retreated, Chris sensed something was wrong. I related the wrenching story, and soon realized I wouldn't have wanted to be with anyone else in the world than Chris Harms on the night I had to run into my first true love.
He joined me on the planning committee for our 10-year high school reunion and did things like call me after a particularly frustrating meeting to ask if I was OK. As senior class president, it fell on me to chair the committee and it was a fair amount of managing personalities. He and I spent hours designing invitations on the spiffy computer at his dad's office. He took a long lunch one day to accompany me on a visit to a site we were considering as a venue.
A little over a year later, one month after our fabulously successful reunion, Chris was dead. He shot himself in the living room of his small apartment on Nov. 7, 1997.
About mid-December, just weeks later, I started to feel Chris' palpable presence. It wasn't just that he was in my thoughts, he was in the room with me, usually just above my left shoulder. I was mad. "What are you doing with me?" I asked. "You're brother, mom and dad need you, NOT me! What about your girlfriend with whom you were starting to talk about marriage?"
But he wouldn't relent. He stayed near, and has remained so these 17 years. So those coins I find, I know they are Chris winking at me. The first three in 2003 came at a time when I felt in flux, unsure of what life had in store. This last year, as I have struggled with the loss of my marriage, the coins have been fantastically abundant, often three or four in a day.
With his giant, gleaming grin Chris presents a tangible piece of himself several times a week to assure me that I will never be alone.
That was enough years ago now that I don't remember the exact date. I do know it wasn't snowing or particularly cold. The sun peering over the nearby residence halls filled the bus with cheer. I believe it was in Spring or early Summer of 2003.
Since then, I have found coins, usually pennies, with astonishing regularity. There was the 51 pennies scattered across the asphalt in front of a grocery store I passed every morning on my walk to the bus. Then there was a quarter wedged up against a building, under a wooden-slatted bench on the same route, but many months later. Last summer, I went through a phase of finding pennies folded in half. The best I can figure is that they heated up so thoroughly lying there abandoned on the roadway that when hit at just the right angle by a car tire, they bent like a taco. Or pita bread. I call them my pita pennies.
When I mention one of my finds to friends, they often ask if the penny was heads up. You know the saying - Find a penny heads up, all day long good luck? "No!" I reply with true glee. It was sunflower side up. The pillars of the Lincoln Memorial on the tails side reminds me of the uniform petals of a sunflower.
One of my high school classmates, Chris Harms, loved sunflowers. I learned this about the handsome, blond, surfer boy when we were about nine years out of school, nurturing our young careers, and building a friendship from what was mostly just an acquaintance while teenagers. He had spent several years post-college in the Peace Corps working in Africa, then later in the deep South for the U.S. Geologic Survey. Eventually, Chris migrated back to San Diego and called me one day out of the blue. "I want to get in touch with my roots," he said, then invited me to meet for beers.
Chris and I were sharing dinner some months later when my ex-girlfriend and her new love, the one she left me for, happened by our table. The new love was someone Chris and I attended junior high school with, so naturally she stopped to say hello. It was the first time I had seen the two of them together since my heart had been broken. I didn't say much, but as soon as they retreated, Chris sensed something was wrong. I related the wrenching story, and soon realized I wouldn't have wanted to be with anyone else in the world than Chris Harms on the night I had to run into my first true love.
He joined me on the planning committee for our 10-year high school reunion and did things like call me after a particularly frustrating meeting to ask if I was OK. As senior class president, it fell on me to chair the committee and it was a fair amount of managing personalities. He and I spent hours designing invitations on the spiffy computer at his dad's office. He took a long lunch one day to accompany me on a visit to a site we were considering as a venue.A little over a year later, one month after our fabulously successful reunion, Chris was dead. He shot himself in the living room of his small apartment on Nov. 7, 1997.
About mid-December, just weeks later, I started to feel Chris' palpable presence. It wasn't just that he was in my thoughts, he was in the room with me, usually just above my left shoulder. I was mad. "What are you doing with me?" I asked. "You're brother, mom and dad need you, NOT me! What about your girlfriend with whom you were starting to talk about marriage?"
But he wouldn't relent. He stayed near, and has remained so these 17 years. So those coins I find, I know they are Chris winking at me. The first three in 2003 came at a time when I felt in flux, unsure of what life had in store. This last year, as I have struggled with the loss of my marriage, the coins have been fantastically abundant, often three or four in a day.
With his giant, gleaming grin Chris presents a tangible piece of himself several times a week to assure me that I will never be alone.
Comments
Post a Comment