Pennies from Heaven

I was never actually aware of this when I was a child, but when I was a bit older after my grandfather passed away, I heard stories of my grampa finding pennies and saying they were pennies from heaven. I thought it was a cute little story and didn't think much of it at the time. As I got older, it became a strangely relevant presence in my life, but we'll get back to that.  First, a little backstory.

My grampa was a hilariously interesting man. He was gruff, but he was also one of the sweetest men I knew when it came to his grandkids. I've heard stories of him being a bit hard, but my generation of the Strem family never really saw that side.  By the time we came, he was older and moved to Florida with my grandma Emily, so when he did see all of us he was just happy to be around the chaos (and trust me, it was a lot of chaos). 

The other thing about my grampa was his name. When I was around 21 years old, I went and got a sunflower tattoo as a memory of this great man, and when I went into the tattoo parlor I explained that I wanted the name Bummy in cursive written right above the leaf. The response was a very confused and quizzical look at me and I had to explain that my grampa never went by any other name but Bummy. According to stories, it all started because he was always disheveled as a child and his father was always asking why he always looked like such a bum. Eventually the name stuck and no one ever called him anything but Bummy. My favorite story was when my parents were getting marrried, they had a dinner to introduce their parents. My mother's mom came into the house and my mom introduced everyone. It went something like this.

"Mom, this is Emily and this is Bummy." 

My grandmother slapped her on the arm and exclaimed, "Don't you call him that!"

My mother, I imagine clearly exasperated with a slight eye roll, said "Alright, this is Walter..."

My grandfather slapped her arm and exclaimed just as offended, "Don't you call me that!!"

This is where I come from, people.  Does that explain anything?

So my grampa Bummy was a character to say the least. The last time I saw him I was probably about 7 or 8 and we headed down to Florida (my first time on a plane!!) to see my grandparents and go to Disney World. I remember the first day of school after summer vacation, when they asked what we did that summer and I said I went to Disney and saw my grandparents. The teacher asked what my favorite part was. My response: "The pool at my grampa's house." I was a child of simple tastes. Anyways, I digress.

When my father was very young (and he was the youngest child of seven children) his sister Nancy died in a tragic accident. It was one of those freak things that shouldn't result in a child's death, but unfortunately it did. The family legend goes that the summer that Nancy died, she had planted sunflower seeds and they never came up. After Nancy passed away, the sunflowers came up each and every summer. That is the reason for the sunflower being so important in my family. That is also one of the reasons I love this idea of pennies from heaven. There are so many people who are up there now, that getting a penny from them feels like a token from my ancestors.

My first year teaching was in 2011. I remember I was sitting in my classroom with two other new teachers and setting things up and discussing what our plans were when I got an unusual phone call: my dad was calling. To put it in perspective, at this point in our lives, my father very rarely called unless it was for something bad. I answered and found out that my grandma Emily had passed away. This is one of those situations where you feel horrible for saying it but you almost feel relieved. My grandma Emily was the kindest human being that quite possibly has ever walked the planet, in my opinion. Unfortunately, she had Alzheimers, and to make matter worse, she was the healthiest person in the entire family. So unfortunately, over the course of over 10 years, her mind deteriorated and her body took it's time to whither. By the end, I was just happy to imagine her finally released from that prison and able to go see my grandpa again. Granted I am not a very religious person but it does bring me a lot of comfort to think about my grandparents up there with my childhood dog, Sprout, hanging out and having a good time. 

When my dad called, he made it very clear that I was not obligated to go to the funeral. My teaching position was in Chicopee, MA and all of the funeral arrangements would be made in Tewksbury, a two-hour distance during my first week of school at my first teaching position. I kept arguing that I couldn't miss my own grandma's funeral but he just kept saying that all the aunts were on board and no one wanted me to miss my first week of school over this. I finished my workday, got into my car, and somewhere between Chicopee and Granby on my way home, I called my mom in tears. I felt terrible that I hadn't gone to see her before she died, I felt horrible that I was even considering not going to the funeral. My mom talked me off the ledge and we hung up and as I pulled into my spot, I opened the door and right outside of my car door was a shiny penny. I immediately burst into tears while picking the penny up and saying audibly in the air, "Thanks grandma!" To me this was a sign from her saying, "Sweetie, just go to school and be the best teacher you can be. That's what I would want."

That moment solidified my thought that pennies from heaven was the real deal and it continued to happen for the next 7 years. Anytime I was unsure of something or worried about a goal, suddenly I'd come upon a penny. It was like the people I had lost reaching out and saying, "You've got this, kiddo." Now I realize that many will read this and roll their eyes because statistically speaking, there are so many pennies just thrown around the U.S. because they are the useless change that no one wants to chase after. However, I like my life with a little bit of whimsy, so I choose to think about it like this. 

So the question is, why am I reminiscing about pennies from heaven when I'm trying to focus on writing about travel and culture shock and whatever?

Well strap in, because this is it:

My previous post about my hellish trip from Toronto to Montreal that stranded me in Montreal until the following day can explaiin how stressed and exhausted I was when I finally boarded the flight with Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca. My seatmates were very kind and my flight went by without a hitch (except this awkward moment in the middle of the night where the woman sitting in front of me reached back and literally gripped my leg...it was very strange and kind of icky). We finally get to Casablanca and I am literally starting to panic, with "What if?" scenarios pouring through my head. Also, saying in my head on a regular basis, "What in the heck was I thinking?!" It was only the second flight in my life where we had to deplane on the tarmac with those big stupid stairs and take an actual shuttle to the drop off point. So I wind my way up and I find customs. I fill out the form and I stand in line. There was a gentleman who had received some helpful tips from the guys in front of me and came back asking if anyone had a pen, so I handed mine over (he did return it when he was done! I mean, what a guy!). Suddenly I looked down and I saw it. It wasn't a U.S. penny (what are the odds of that?) but it was a 1 cent Euro. The smile that crept up on my face can only be described as pure glee. This is the smile I have when I an transcendentally happy. My cheekbones creep up so high that my crows feet are completely visible and my eyes are almost slits because I just can't stop them from going so high. This was a moment when I knew, for a fact, that I was in the right place, that this gamble was worth it, and even if it wasn't, that my family up there was with me. 

It's a tiny little thing, this Euro, but now it sits on the mantle above the fireplace between my kitchen and living room. It is a reminder that I not only have support from all of the people I love back home, but I believe that I have the support of the people I love who I've lost. Now, I'd like to finish this story on a high note, in honor of my goofy, crazy, wonderful grampa and the women (my grandma Emily and Bummy's mom great-grandma Strem) who always took care of him and tried to keep him in check. 

There was one time that we had a family party at my great-grandma's house. It was a modest little house in Tewksbury, but it had this cool renovated porch that had been turned into a bedroom. The windows had been left in the wall but the glass panes had been taken out, so it was just a framed square hole in the wall. My cousins and I were sitting on my great-grandma's bed playing Crazy 8's and about every 5 minutes my great-grandma, in her raspy voice, would holler at us, "Don't you kids jump through that window!" After a while we stopped even replying but she would continue hollering at us every 5 minutes. Eventually she hollered it again and my grampa Bummy shouted, "Like this!!" and took a running leap towards the window. He leapt through the window and landed smack dab in the middle of my great-grandma's bed, right in the middle of the cousins, and the cards flew into the air like some sort of paper volcano. I remember we were all so mad because he had ruined our game and my great-grandma was hollering up a storm for this. Now it's my fondest memory of my grampa, because he wasn't afraid to fly and now I'm not either.