A Dead Man's Wallet
by Courtney Ballard
Okay, so I’ll admit that searching through a dead man’s wallet is generally a bad thing. It usually means either: a) you’re robbing a dead man. Or b) you’re robbing a dead man you just murdered. But what if it means c) your dad died of cancer, and that wallet is the only piece of him you have left? Now is it bad to search through that wallet? Maybe. But I’m doing it anyway.
It was impossible for me, as a five-year-old to see and to understand my dad as a man. Young children only see their parents as superheroes, nurses, chefs, chauffeurs, and maybe even best friends, but they rarely see their parents as individuals with answerless questions, solution-free problems, with hurts, with fears, or with dreams. This is what is so unfortunate about my father dying when I was so young: I never got to know him as a human being, only as a wounded superhero who could no longer fly.
Fortunately for me, when he did go up, up, and away, he left his wallet behind. Now something that was once so insignificant, simply used to organize a handful of items, has become a vital clue in my attempt to solve the enigma that is the man I never got to know as a man. Now it carries great weight, as well as fairly good answers.
Upon opening the first fold, likely for my thousandth time, I see my dad’s driver’s license picture smiling at me. I read:
Full Name: Richard Ralph Marshall
Date of Birth: June 7, 1955
Height: 5’7” Weight: 180 lbs. Eye Color: Hazel
Organ Donor: Y License Expiration: June 2000
My dad expired five years before his license did. I guess I shouldn’t have expected “solving my dad” to be a comfortable matter.
Peeling back the second fold reveals a photo album in the center and various credit, library, and insurance cards tucked into a series of pouches on the far left. A hidden pocket behind the photos houses small, imaginative colorings my sister and I produced, then gifted to my dad. One is of crayon-drawn flowers sprouting from lush, green grass. The second is merely a circle that has been drawn with a pink colored pencil, using some sort of circular object for the guide. I’m guessing my sister created the first and I the second, based on the levels of advancement. Each picture is about three-by-three inches. They are quite small. I think the fact that my dad housed such small, unimportant pictures in such a safe and secure location is a testament to what kind of dad he was. He must have been kind and loving, patient, and, it seems, also quite proud of his daughters. I remember my dad being kind, loving, and patient toward me, but proud is something that I think can only be appreciated from the outside looking in. What a comforting thought to know now that my father was proud of who I was, even though I had yet to achieve anything “great” in the eyes of the world.
Lastly, when dividing the wallet’s front from its back, I find a plastic green iguana positioned where George Washington and his friend Abe would originally have been kept. I could say that this is evidence that my dad prioritized humor over money, but I must be honest with myself. I am not certain whether my dad kept this here for the amusement of my sister and me, or if perhaps I placed it there shortly after he died. (I used to carry his wallet around like a teddy bear.) Nevertheless I believe that he would have appreciated its silliness.
When I investigate the centrally located photo album along with the various pouched cards, I am privileged to learn more about my parents’ relationship. For example, my dad must have liked the way my mom looked. She made it into the album. Her clothes are outdated but her smile is pretty. I also learn that he desired to make her happy, for there is a card tucked away in a fold of the wallet that lists her birthday, dress size, sweater size, blouse size, skirt size, shoe size, and Social Security Number, just in case he forgot.
The wallet also tells me that he must have thought my sister and I were pretty cute too because the rest of the photo album is full of pictures of us. In one of them we’re wearing matching gingham dresses that coordinate well with the outdated dress my mother is wearing in her picture. We don’t look too pleased about them.
Another thing I can learn, thanks to his driver’s license picture, is that my sister may have my dad’s perfect skin tone, his nose, and his small hands, but I have his eyes. For some reason that’s more important to me than knowing that he thought I looked cute in an awful pink, gingham dress.
I know these aforementioned clues do not help me delve into my dad’s dreams, his fears, or his hurts, but they do affirm the simplest, yet most important facts about my dad: he was generous; he appreciated less than stellar artwork; he was silly; and he loved his family. I can know these things, not just from accidental memories of him, but also from a simple, everyday sort of item: a wallet. A wallet that has journeyed from a plain, everyday item, to an answer key of sorts, frozen in time, with the sole purpose of converting Superman into Clark Kent, the simple man who is really the one worth knowing.
Courtney: I'm a current student at the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota, studying Theology.
