We’d already taken a wrong turn and were late to pick up our friends at San Francisco Airport, and now we’d found ourselves on the Golden Gate bridge with not quite enough money for the toll booth.

Of course they don’t take credit or debit cards. So spoiled are we that we don’t carry much cash anymore, but this was strictly a cash-only business. What to do? You can’t just do a u-turn or back-up. It’s like the loan shark finally caught up to you and has you cornered.

Mona said she had a couple of $2 bills. In the dim recesses of my mind I thought maybe I had one, too, but wasn’t sure. And I was panicking. You’re on the clock and it’s deal or deal — forget no deal. I didn’t realize the importance of her $2 bills. One had a lot of writing on it and the other one just looked like a new bill. So why not just give the toll booth agent the fresh $2 bill and be done with it. We can always get another one at the bank. Instead, she handed me the one with the writing on it.

“Are you sure?” I asked, puzzled. It seemed to me that would be the special one to hang on to. It was personalized. But, no, she insisted. Just give him that one. So I did. And I started driving away.

Mona was near tears.

“Why didn’t you just give him the plain one? You can always get another one of those.”

“No, I can’t. My Dad gave me that one when I started my business.”

“But wasn’t the other one given to you when you started your business?”

“Yes, but I don’t even remember who gave it to me and I can’t read what it says on it anymore.”

Now I understood. Mona was as close to her father as anyone could be. He was a mentor, a best pal, a confidant, but most importantly, a father. She was beside herself. So I pulled over and started going through my wallet to see if I still had that $2 bill. I was reluctant to give it up because of the way I came upon it. After my father died I was going through his effects because I was executor of his estate and I found the bill in his wallet. We both liked the $2 bill for some reason. Maybe because it seemed exotic and maybe more in my case because of my admiration for Thomas Jefferson. At any rate, it had deep symbolic value to me that matched Mona’s attachment to her bill.

I don’t think I would have given that bill to anyone else, but I thought it made sense at the time to hand it over to her. I wanted to salve her hurt feelings. So I explained its significance and gave it to her.

“You hang on to it for safekeeping. Now I’ll always know it’s safe.”

Her eyes glazed over with tears and she trembled with emotion. Then she pulled out a picture of her father and handed it to me.

“Here, I want you to take this and keep it for me.”

I didn’t want to take it. That was too much responsibility. It was obviously a very personal picture. One that had been through a lot over the years. She said it had marks on it because when she hit some of the lowest points in her life as she rode that rollercoaster of grief after her father’s death she would take it out and kiss it.

After some serious cajoling she finally convinced me to hang on to it.

Some time later we tried to reason why these simple objects meant so much to us. It’s not like we need them to remind ourselves how much we loved our fathers. I guess we finally concluded that hanging on to them was just another way to express our love. We didn’t need them. It was enough to just want to keep them. But as I get older the less I am affected by personal effects like this. I could lose it all in a fire and it wouldn’t bother me so much, and that’s because my love and admiration for my father deepens each day as I come to appreciate what he went through to redeem himself. He wasn’t much of a father to me growing up, it’s true, because of his alcoholism. But as an adult, after he sobered up, we grew close and he provided me with one of the greatest bits of advice when I’d reached an important crossroads in my life. I had lost my job a couple of years earlier and my career was in the doldrums. I’d rediscovered my love for creative writing and wanted to take a shot at learning screenwriting. I’d never dreamed of moving to California but UCLA had the best and most affordable program so I wondered if I should go for it. It would be tough to leave behind my friends and family, but my Dad said, “Go. You don’t have a wife, you don’t have kids and you don’t have a mortgage. Go live your life.” So I did and I re-sparked my career.

So I don’t need any reminders like a $2 bill, but they’re nice to have. Especially when they help bind you closer to the ones you love.

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