Pennies for Heaven

Christmas often brings with it a slew of memories; recent and much further in our distant past. Grown children recall their first Christmas or their favorite Christmas. They retell a story, time and again, as family gathers each year, about the time dad dressed like Santa, and it freaked them out when mom kissed him, thinking no one was around. Or how they opened the wrong present and from then on thought that G. I. Joe their brother had was really theirs.

For me, one of my most vivid Christmas memories had little to do with trees and presents and Santa. But it had to do with a lesson, which I didn't recognize as such nor was it intended to be at the time, until I was much older and could appreciate such things. It was the time we were headed to midnight mass during the Christmas of '67. The ground was covered in snow, the power and phone lines heavy with the stuff. You couldn't tell where the sidewalk ended and the street began, except by the rows of cars parked along the curb.

While crossing Rosehill Street, my mom dropped her small purse, spilling the pennies she had saved for the poor box. She started to pick each and every one of them up. We helped. Then we noticed the big truck coming down the road. In hind sight, the truck was probably a small dump truck hauling salt. But to a six year old's eyes it was the Godzilla of vehicles.

He wasn't stopping. But my mom insisted on getting every one of those copper coins; she would not leave one behind. Despite our yells and warnings, and amid her quiet calls for us to shush and get to the sidewalk, she stayed crouched down, gathering them up. She got them all and got out of the way just as the truck passed by. And off to mass we went. Once there she made sure to put every one of those pennies in the box for the needy.

For this reason, I make sure to put all my pennies into a box for charity or in the plate next to the registers at the convenience stores. Except for the wheat pennies. But that is a different story about my mom for another time.

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