Gigi

I found a wheat penny in my change purse and lost my cool.

When I worked at the bank, I enlisted my coworkers to help me collect any they came across. “They’re for my Grandma’s collection”, I said. I don’t recall anyone ever finding any. I hadn’t thought about wheat pennies in years… until I was putting change from my purse into my children’s banks.

I thought about the giant green glass jug that Grandma slowly filled with pennies. It wasn’t the only jar she kept, but it was my favorite one. I remember the thick clink of the coins as I added penny after penny to the growing pile inside the jug.

I thought about the institutional sized cans she kept other coins in. Every so often, we would sit at the kitchen table, carefully counting and making stacks of coins to be wrapped. She had a shoe box of faded, color-coded coin wrappers rubber banded together from which I would gingerly slide wrappers one at a time. This is how I learned to count money and add with decimal points – long before I sat in a classroom.

I thought about how she earned those coins. She and another lady from her church catered all sorts of functions. I watched her coordinate, make shopping lists, shop, prep, cook, serve, and clean up after events. My favorite was the shopping. We would shop wholesale and I got to ride on the steel platform truck at Seaway before it got too full.

I thought about how I used to do everything with Grandma. “Gamma” was my first word because she greeted me in my crib every morning, “How’s Grandma’s baby?”. She set me in her lap and drew the pictures and letters for simple words. She let me watch her and eventually help her cook. Sometimes I was her legs, venturing to the basement shelves for missing ingredients. I tagged along to countless meetings, learning to use my imagination to escape boredom.

One small wheat penny triggered an avalanche of memories. I can hear her voice, calling my name. Sometimes I fuss at my children the way she fussed at me, still mumbling to myself after they’ve gone about their business. I still don’t regret not participating in the cotillion like she wanted. Especially since I paid for it by attending every other thing she asked me to attend for the next twenty years.

I miss her fiercely.