“What’s in your wallet?”

The familiar tag line from a credit card commercial “What’s in your wallet?” I had set out to clean off more shelves in the basement and my eye caught sight of Justin’s wallet and its contents. The wallet was returned to us with his body. The wallet had been carefully placed in a plastic bag, it was soaked and smelling of pond water. I remember having to go through its contents, we had to account for his debit card and we always insisted that he carry one of our credit cards for emergencies. It was in many ways a snapshot of Justin’s life, past and present.  Every scrap of paper was important and we carefully laid everything out on a piece of foil in front of the dehumidifier. We worked through tears and shock…your mind and body can hardly register what you are doing. The smell of dank water makes a memory in your mind and it leads to other thoughts and visions that are hard to dispel. We found the cards and continued to gently spread papers out to dry.  The boy was only carrying $3 on him, we had to smile at that, he was never one to carry much money.

There was a movie stub from his last visit home in August 2010, just six weeks before he was killed. He had gone to Manassas, VA to meet up with friends and they had gone to see Toy Story. A receipt from a bank in Vermillion, SD from the day he left South Dakota to come home…some papers the text has been completely washed away..silt and mold filling the creases, and yet I am not ready to throw them away. You keep hoping for some small scrap, another little window, something to hold on to that was close to him.

Justin had the same wallet for years, the leather worn away in places. I give up on cleaning the shelves and collect the bits and pieces, now dry…still gritty, I am sure there is mold present and I am hard pressed to discern if my eyes burn from tears or mold.

So what else was in your wallet my son, it is a walk through his life. His social security card, the signature blurry and water smeared, his STAND card from the Archdiocese of Baltimore signed by momma Mason, a library card from the public library in Vermillion, South Dakota, of course, Justin had a library card from where ever he had lived. There is a laminated card from Franciscan stating that he could drive their vans, a card from Jazzman’s at Franciscan, he still needed some stamps to get a free coffee. A business card from his father, a business card from his Uncle Ken, both stained and discolored, a note started to someone dear to him, folded and fragile…unfinished.  It is hard to put into words how much your heart can hurt, I read that our bodies grieve also and it is true, they ache and long to hold the one they cannot see.

Grief is a conundrum, a great puzzle that can’t be solved, there is simply nothing for it, but to go through it.

I sort through the cards and papers again, unwilling to part with any of the contents, it is exhausting and my head pounds. I ask myself what would my wallet say about me? Would it tell people who I am, who I loved, what was important to me?

Going through Justin’s wallet would tell an onlooker that he loved learning, books, coffee, that there was a special person in his life, he was Catholic, and a volunteer, that he was in a lot of weddings (he had a Men’s Wearhouse card and he only went there to rent a tux), we speak volumes about our selves in the smallest things.

What’s  in your wallet?