In case of an emergency, please tell my story

I held my grandfather’s wallet the other night. It is black leather and worn smooth from a few years’ use. Curiously, I held it in my hands a moment or two before exploring its contents. I saw his membership card to the National Letter Carriers’ Association as well as the receipts for the annual dues he’d paid. I read a notice raising his salary to just above $5,800 a year. In his own handwriting, he'd filled out the “In case of an emergency” card to say: Mrs. Hazel C. Newell. I saw pictures of her and their three sons. He also carried there his driver’s license and social security card.

I imagined it was the same wallet he’d used when buying his three sons each an Almond Joy as a gift upon his return from World War II. I wondered if that was the same wallet from which he took his tithe to the Clark Street United Methodist Church. I speculated further that this money pouch was never really used as a place to hold his money, but was used to hold pieces of his identity.

I held in my warm hands links to a person I'd never met. He died before I was born, but he was most definitely someone I knew. From my early years as a child, I was told story after story about the character of my grandfather - the veteran, the church leader, the coach. Introducing me to him, folks would say, “I played ball for your grandfather. He was a fine man.” I held in my hands something that had been in his hands the last day he lived. That day he got up, got ready for work, winded his watch and put his wallet in his pocket. He went off to deliver the day’s mail and was killed when another vehicle smashed into his mail truck. It was then, perhaps, that his wallet was taken from his pocket to notify his nearest kin.

On Thanksgiving night, the same wallet that was pulled from my grandfather’s lifeless body was now in my hands telling his stories one more time.