The Little Things
June 15, 2024
The other day, I bought Father’s Day cards for my husband and son-in-law. This is the first year in my whole life that I did not buy a Father’s Day card for my dad. My heart feels that gap.
After my father passed away, I decided to write out all the little things about him that I remembered. The ordinary everyday things that are easily forgotten. The ordinary things that rise up and remind me of him, such as the foods he liked, his habits, what he wore, and so on. This writing exercise ballooned to seven pages of short paragraphs. I am sharing one of those paragraphs with you here today:
Dad had a pair of small tin bells that hung from every rearview mirror of every car he owned. They would jingle when the car hit a bump or pothole. I remember as a child waiting in the car for Mom to get done in the store. I would tap those bells repeatedly to hear them jingle as I daydreamed about nothing.
Growing up I thought the bells were a trinket from their 1957 wedding. But recently Mom told me Dad originally had only one bell hanging from his rearview mirror. She did not recall where he got it, but when they started dating, Mom bought a second bell just like it and hung it next to Dad’s bell. A clever way to remind him of her every time he got into the car. I never asked Dad about the bells, so I don’t know what those bells meant to him. But if they hung in every car for 67+ years, whatever it meant it was significant.
The bells are a little rusty, the finish is long gone, but they still sound the same as they always have. Perhaps for him they were a reminder of someone’s enduring love when life is full of bumps and potholes?
Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I love you!