The Money Clip

Steve was a lot of things. He was passionate. He was intelligent. He was fearless, and surprisingly compassionate. But one thing he was not was sentimental. When we first started dating, we both exchanged the requisite school photos, so that we could share the photos of our significant-other with friends and family. And of course, we tucked those photos away safely, so that we could look at the image of our heart’s desire during the times we were apart. It was a typical photo exchange between young lovers. We were no different.

After Steve and I were married, however, he stopped carrying photos of me, and subsequently our daughters, in his wallet. When I questioned him about this, he told me that there wasn’t enough room in his wallet for all his permits AND family photos, so he chose the permits. “After all,” he said. That’s what coffee tables and book shelves are for. He was right, of course. I was famous for littering the furniture with family photos.

If memory serves me correctly, I think I was mildly upset, but Steve’s reasoning was sound. As a policeman, you are required to carry several permits by law, so there really wasn’t any room for our photos. I think I let him off the hook with a warning (which is police-talk for a mild reprimand), and we went on with our lives together.

As time progressed, and the children left home, Steve never wavered from his practice of only carrying his permits and bank cards. The grandchildren eventually entered the picture, and still—Steve insisted that there was no room for wallet photos…and I agreed. We had been blessed with seven grandchildren. There really wasn’t room for so many pictures.

Life moved on, and as many of you know, we eventually retired to the Tidewater lands of Virginia. Steve was diagnosed with terminal liver failure in 2015, and we spent the majority of our free time traveling to specialists, Internists and the Transplant Center in Charlottesville.

As Steve’s condition deteriorated, I began to notice that he had stopped carrying his wallet. When I asked him about it, he said that his wallet was too heavy, so he had taken to carrying a silver money clip with all his permits and bank cards in his front pocket. “It’s just easier that way,” he said. I accepted this truth as we spiraled closer and closer to Steve’s final months.

During those last few months, Steve spent the majority of his time in the hospital. He was a semi-invalid by this time, so I did all his packing and unpacking for him. During one of the last times I unpacked for him, I found the money clip and all its little permits and cards tucked away in his pajama pants. I held it up and said, “Do you really need this in the hospital? It’s not like you’re going to need your concealed-carry permit in the Transplant Ward.” Steve gave me a sly grin, and said, “You never know. There could be an insurrection.” We both laughed, and from that time on, I always made sure that the silver money clip was included in his belongings during his last few visits to the hospital.

After Steve died, the funeral home returned Steve’s personal effects to me, i.e., the things he had with him when he died. When I received the envelope, I swiftly peered inside and saw the silver money clip lying at the bottom. I hurriedly thrust my hand down into the envelope, plucked out the clip and tossed it into the drawer of my nightstand. It was too personal, and I was too raw to look through those last earthly artifacts that Steve had carried with him.

And then…I forgot about them.

I was doing some early spring cleaning the other day, and decided to begin with my bedroom. I was intent on cleaning out items and clothes that I no longer needed. My nightstand was my first target, and I tugged at the drawer indelicately. It caught, and refused to open, so I pulled harder on the handle of the resistant drawer. It still refused to open, so I reached inside and felt around for the obstacle that was clearly causing the problem, and pulled it out unceremoniously. As soon as I saw the offending object in my hand, I realized what it was and hesitated. It was the money clip. Did I really want to do this, I wondered? I still wasn’t sure that I could look at it. But, it had been almost a year, and I realized that I could not continue to insulate myself in such a manner forever. I sat down on my bed, with Steve’s money clip in my hand, and began to thumb through the permits and bank cards. I decided to take them all out of the clip and put them on my bed. There they were: the Police Commission card, the Open Carry Gun Permit, the Concealed Carry Permit, his boat owner’s permit, his bank cards, his insurance cards and of course, a $50.00 bill. I picked through them carefully, as I looked over the things Steve held so close to his body during his last days. I had almost finished going through the pile, when my attention was suddenly arrested by an item I had not expected to find. There, in the very center of all Steve’s permits, certifications and bank cards was a photo of me. I can honestly tell you that I was shocked. Steve had always been so insistent about leaving the photos on the coffee table. Now, here was evidence that he had not followed his own rule. I pulled the photo from the stack of cards and examined it carefully. It was a photo of me when I was about 30. Steve used to tease me about it, and tell me that I had “80’s hair.” Yet here was proof, that he actually liked that picture.

Tears began to form at the corners of my eyes, as I realized that Steve had been lugging my photo around with him during the last few months, weeks and days of his life. I never knew. He had never said a word. He just silently carried it with him, so that he could look at me, when I wasn’t with him. Even in death, the man is full of surprises.

Of course, I have returned the favor one hundred fold. You can’t enter a room in my house, without seeing a photo of Steve. I even have a framed photo in the guest house, so that all my future guests can look at the image of the person I love the most.

And I do—love him the most.

Love y'all.

Sarah