A Father’s Day story by Tamara Landis

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The author and her father. (Click to enlarge photo)

   The two sisters were just hanging out, enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon and sipping a glass of wine. Their conversation rambled over the events of the weekend, most notably the volleyball tournament in Peekskill, N.Y. One sister’s daughter was on a team, and the succession of games had been enough to try the patience of a saint. Thank God it was over.

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Max Landis during a birthday celebration.

   The conversation turned to the sisters’ father, a kind, gentle man who had passed away nine years before.

   “I really wanted to get his watch,” one sister said.

   “I’m sorry – I didn’t know you wanted it,” said the sister who had it.

   “Yes,” replied the other, “I was there with him the night he received it after 20 years of service for Wilson Lumber. But it’s okay, you keep it. I　have his wallet.” And she got up, left the room, and returned with the wallet.

   Who could imagine that something as insignificant as a wallet could suddenly take on a life of its own? The black leather was worn and tired. The father never spent any money on himself; it always went for his family.

   I was one of those sisters that Sunday afternoon. Looking at my father’s old, tired, black leather wallet made my throat tighten and my eyes water. My sister made a joke about how there was no money in it because that was what she was looking for. But we both knew that it meant a whole lot more than money.

   For that wallet was stuffed with evidence of a man who loved his family.

   There was a black-and-white photo of our mother. She was so very beautiful! Not sure how old she was in the photo, but it was a long time ago. And then there was a picture of his kids, when I was still a toddler and before my younger sister came along. There we were, my older brother and sister and me, just a baby really, looking all spiffy in our Sunday best. This, too, was a black-and-white photo, and a bit tattered as well. He must have gazed upon it many, many times through the years. There were pictures of my older sister with her own family. Her children – who are now adults – were just little people then, and there was her husband. Sadly, he also has passed away, ripped from us so suddenly almost 13 years ago.

   The individual pictures of his grandchildren rest gently in the folds of the plastic from so many years ago. I wonder, did he look at them often? Did he softly caress them as he gazed upon their beautiful, young faces as I am doing now?

   And then there were pictures of my baby sister, the one with whom the wallet now resides. We used to joke that there were very few pictures of her, but the truth is my parents didn’t own a camera of their own. Money was always an issue and a camera would have been a luxury. These photos of my sister were school pictures. I commented on how adorable she was; she commented on how she had hated the shirt she was wearing – one of my hand-me-downs.

   So much history, so much emotion, in one little compact piece of leather.

   My sister began to tell me how it was that my father never had to be drafted into the military, a story I had never heard. In the midst of her storytelling, she found in his wallet the Selective Service Registration cards, and as she pulled them out, we looked at them in awe, as if somehow we could pull him out of there as well. He didn’t have to go into the service because he was a young man with a family to support. But knowing our father, he would have served his country if his number had come up.

Tamara Landis

Tamara Landis

   There were some health insurance cards, which in his final days became so very important, since my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2000. I will never forget how diligent he was, no matter how sick he felt, in talking with those people at the insurance company to make certain that all was in order.

   And last, but not least, my sister pulled out our dad’s driver’s license. It was then that I really teared up. Seeing his face on that driver’s license just brought it all out – here we were, his two daughters, looking through his wallet, and there in laminated form was his picture … and it was almost too much to bear. “Oh, Daddy,” I thought, “I miss you soooo much.”

   It doesn’t matter where you are, or how old you are, or any of that. Missing someone so very dear to you just never goes away.

   On that Sunday afternoon in New York City, two sisters found their way back to a place where only sisters can go: to the family ties that bind us closely, always. The reminder was an old, black leather wallet. It belonged to my dad, and it was priceless.

TAMARA LANDIS, a native LaPortean, is the daughter of Barbara Landis of LaPorte and the late Max Landis.