PENNIES FROM HEAVEN

I found a penny today
Just laying on the ground.
But it's not just a penny
This little coin I've found.


I spied it there in the middle of the bathroom floor, a Lincoln head penny staring up at me from the tile. I picked it up and grinned at old Abe. I was getting ready for a Woman's Prayer breakfast at church, but I took the time to walk back into my bedroom and carefully place the penny in a china cup on my dresser. It clinked against the other coins in the cup, a pleasant reminder of just how many of these little treasures I have accumulated in the past few months.

I've been picking up coins off the floors for years. I used to rail at my husband and sons; the spillage from their pockets broke the belts on my vacuum cleaner, found their way into the crevices of my woodwork, and stuck to the wax on the kitchen floor. Coins lived in the couch cushions or the car seats or hid in the pockets of jeans that were carelessly thrown into the washer, rattling around in wild abandonment. 

My husband would just smile at me and shrug. "Pennies from heaven," he would say. "Means an angel is thinking of you." Then he would bend down and carefully pick the penny up and stick it in his pocket, heedless to the fact that it would likely end up on the floor again. I tried, with varying degrees of success, to accept a habit I couldn't change. I ordered vacuum cleaner belts in bulk. 

In the last few years, Ron was no longer able to bend and pick up the wayward coins, but he still delighted in finding them. "Look, Linda," he would shout, " a penny! Hurry and pick it up!" So I would, and he say, "A penny from heaven!" Once in a while I would ponder where all the pennies were coming from; Ron's pockets were mostly empty as he became more and more disabled and his wardrobe consisted of easy on, easy off clothing. The pennies found their way into a jar we kept on his dresser. Finding coins in unexpected places delighted him. 

Found pennies come from heaven
that's what my Grandma told me.
She said Angels tossed them down
Oh, how I loved that story!

Like the other items that resided in the room that became Ron's the last nine months, the jar was eventually moved. I took the contents to the change machine at the bank. I used the few dollars to buy flowers for his grave.

But a few days after Ron passed away, I found a penny, right there in the hallway where I had just vacuumed the day before. I told myself it must have come from Allen, even though I knew Allen was favoring athletic shorts with no pockets in the last days of summer and with the disregard for social conventions characteristic of adults with autism, kept his change in a plastic bag. I picked the penny up and put it on my dresser.



She said when an Angel misses you
They toss a penny down,
sometimes just to cheer you up
To make a smile out of your frown.

Coins kept showing up, sometimes in the hallway or the steps, once on the bedroom floor, a few times under the couch. The coins were mostly pennies, although the occasional dime or nickel would appear. I asked Allen if he was dropping money and he just shrugged. I took a cup my best friend had given me and started collecting the coins. And every time I found one, I thought of my husband. "Quick, Linda! Pick it  up! It's a penny from heaven!"

This morning's coin, I figured, was just one more reminder of my beloved Ron, perhaps a "have a good time at the woman's breakfast" or an "I'm thinking of you today" or a mere coincidence. It didn't matter to me. I hummed a couple of bars of that old Bing Crosby ditty, "Pennies from Heaven," and got ready to go out.

My daughter arrived a few minutes later and as we drove the short distance to the church, I told her about the penny. "That's Daddy," she agreed. "He was always dropping coins." After the breakfast was over, I asked her to drive by the cemetery.

"Dad's gravestone was supposed to be in last week," I said. "But it wasn't. I want to check." It had been hard to see the stone two weeks ago when it arrived at Lawncroft. It would be harder still to see it over his grave. If possible, I wanted my daughter with me.

So don't pass by that penny
When you're feeling blue.
It may be a penny from heaven
That an Angel's tossed to you.

Author: Copyright © 1998 C Mashburn

"I put roses there on Valentine's Day," I told my daughter as she parked the car and we walked the short distance across the ground. "I hope they're still there."

Bonnie stopped and grabbed my arm. "The roses are there, Mom. And the stone, " she said. "Daddy's marker. It's there."

And it was. The Indian red stone for his favorite color,  the flying eagle for his favorite football team, John 3:16 for his favorite Bible verse. And his name and dates: Ronald A. Cobourn, 1951-2019.

Bonnie and I stood for a moment, hugging each other. And I remembered that penny on the bathroom floor, that penny that maybe came from Ron, that penny that reminded me that while widowhood had some very rough moments, it also had some wonderful memories. 

Like all of those pennies I've collected in the china cup in the last seven months. 

A TALE OF TWO SLIPPERS

I have explained the process of a cornea transplant to my son as carefully as I can, high-lighting the fact that the procedure will restore vision to my right eye and bypassing the rather queasy details. He nods. He sort of remembers from the last time, but he was little and his father was, unlike now, more able to take care of things.

This, his sister has told me, is Allen's biggest worry: that I will become as incapacitated as his disabled dad. I want him to know that after some recovery time I will be right as rain. No need to worry.

But worry he does. "What will  help you feel better?" he asks me. 

I talk about taking care of the cats and making sure I get hot tea when I need it, but he needs something much more solid. Like many on the autism spectrum, Allen is very concrete in his thinking. The fact that he is considering my feelings shows how far he has come in the last few years.

I think carefully. It needs to be something easily attained, but also related directly to my successful recovery.

"Slippers," I tell  him. "Nice comfy slippers I can wear while I'm laying around and my eye heals."

"Fine,"he says. "I will get you slippers. Then you'll be okay."

I forget about it for a few days. There is much to be done to provide for Ron's needs as I am on the injured list for a while. Thursday night, Allen heads out the door. "Going to Walmart," he tells me. "I need to get you slippers." It has become a mission for him. Alas, when he returns an hour later he sadly reports that he couldn't find any. "Not nice ones," he says. 

I want to tell him to forget it, but I know that the slippers are now tied up with his confidence that I will recover, so I simply say, "There are other stores." And on Friday, Allen heads out again in search of something I thought would be easy for him to find. But he still comes back empty-handed. Who knew slippers were such a commodity? 

Saturday morning dawns. We are supposed to attend Wendy's Cancer Free Party and I awaken Allen at 10 am to remind him. I hear him get up and shower, then zoom down the steps and out the door. "We're leaving at 11:30!" I shout, but he is already racing towards his car. By the time my daughter Bonnie arrives to chauffeur us to Roxborough, Allen has not returned. Bonnie texts him but gets no response.

"He knew we were leaving, " I say. I write a note and attach it to the door. I am not really worried about him but I ask him to call us when he gets home. I'm just a little annoyed that he has forgotten about the party. 

It is an hour later and we are helping Wendy set things up when Bonnie's phone dings with a text. She smiles and reads it to me. 

FOUND MOM'S SLIPPERS. SHE'LL BE FINE NOW.

Any annoyance I had at my adult autistic son flies away. The slippers have become such an objective to him that nothing else matters. 

Bonnie gives me a hug. "You have to get better now," she says. "Allen found you slippers!"

My magic slippers are packed and ready.

Scenes from the Hero's Life: Unique

I’d finished the book and now sat in the waiting room, at least 1 ½ hours of forced inactivity looming ahead of me. And me without my journal or my knitting, the mainstays of my personal “go bag.” I hadn't expected that the first appointment with the psychologist from Occupational Vocational Rehabilitation would be so long. I’d come with Allen toting only my Kindle and my I-phone and now I waited for my son, who sat with Dr. Puelo on the other side of the door.

Sigh.

I am not good at sitting still. There are always a million things that draw on my time, and today was no different. I thought about driving back home—30 minutes—and back again—another 30 minutes—but it seemed nonsensical. And I didn't know Broomall well enough to go exploring.

So I sat. The room—a sea foam green, softly lit, with deep green coaches—pulled me in. I closed my eyes; I prayed. I prayed for my son Allen and for his future, for the years of struggling at school and being bullied, for the car accident that had stolen his father. I prayed for him and his quirks and his ideas and his spirit. It had taken four months for us to get to this appointment, jumping over various government hoops. I hoped that OVR would be able to help Allen with job training and mentoring.

I must have drifted off, for there was no one else in the room to see me, just the soft strains of classical music piped through an old black radio—of all things—and the faint hum of traffic on Lancaster Road. Despite my hectic life and Ron’s ongoing illnesses, I felt at peace. This appointment today would hold an important key to Allen’s life.

I picked up my Kindle, searching for a good “read.” Lately, my tastes have run to historical fiction, particularly when past and present intertwine. Susanna Kearlsey’s A Desperate Fortune could be just the ticket. I downloaded a sample and began to read about a slightly quirky protagonist who was socially awkward, liked to solve puzzles, and was unsettled by crowds and loud noises. Someone, I thought, just like my Allen who claims the noises from a turned off television bother his ears and who draws intricate mazes on kitchen napkins. I read further. Even before I got to the word, even before I saw it spelled out and let it sink into my brain, I knew. I knew what Dr. Puelo was finding out. I knew what I had always known but had never put a name to.

Asperger’s Syndrome. It made sense.

I don’t care much for labels, but they can be useful. I used my I=phone to find some famous people who had Asperger’s: Daryll Hannah, Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln. Bright and creative people. Allen was in good company.

Allen looked tired when he came into the waiting room, Dr. P behind him. “I made him work his brain pretty well,” the good doctor said and smiled. I already liked him. He was going to make a difference in Allen’s life. We set the date for the next appointment.

On the way up 476 three hours ago, I had tried to prepare Allen a bit and encouraged him to keep an open mind. He comes from stubborn German and Powhatan people. I had also told him that he didn’t need to talk about what he had discussed with Dr. P. But we had not sooner gotten in the car when Allen turned to me. “I like him,” said my son. “But there’s one thing I don’t get. He says I have autism. I’m not even sure what that is. He says it’s probably mild, like asp…” he struggled with the word.

“Asperger’s,” I supplied. I breathed.

“Yeah. That. Just what is it?”

Ah, another characteristic of AS, Allen’s unshakable belief that I and his siblings could always supply the answers. I explained that AS was a neurological condition, just the way his brain worked, and that very bright and creative people had it. I named a few.

“Okay,” he said. “Doesn’t sound too bad. It’s not like I’m gonna die from it.”

I smiled. It was more like my son would find a way to live. As we turned onto I-476, I realized that I could finally drop the guilt I’d carried about my youngest child. Ron’s car accident had not destroyed him. As a neurological condition, Allen’s AS—like many things in life—had always been out of my control. In fact, I’d done a pretty good job of helping him cope with a brain that functioned differently. No alcohol, no drugs, no risky behavior. Sometimes wrapping aluminum foil around his windows to keep out “sound waves” was not risky, merely his way of dealing.

“I don’t like labels,” he said to me, something he’d heard me say often enough.

“I know,” I said. “Me neither. But sometimes the label helps you get what you need.”

He nodded. “Okay.” There was a pause. “I always just thought I was unique.”

I smiled. “You are.”

“So whatever Dr. P says, or whenever anyone says I have Asperger’s, I'm just gonna think ‘unique’”.

Of course. He always has been. And he always will be.