Actually, this post could be titled What I Found in Daddy’s Wallet or Robert Allen’s Picture or Forever Relationships.

I suspect, though, that the most accurate title would be, Oh, the timing of  it . . .

Patrick Alexander passed away this month at the age of 38 after a long and valiant fight against cancer. His father, as I have noted before was my father’s nephew. Robert Allen Alexander was named after my dad and his dad – Robert Pershing Grismore and Allen Alexander. I think Daddy was always self conscious about it and therefore always called him Robert Allen, although most people call him Bob – the same way that he always called his grandson Robert William, even though most people call him Rob.

I haven’t been able to make peace with Patrick’s early death and the loss felt by his mother and father and his wife, Katie. This morning I sent Robert Allen’s sister, Lana, an email to that effect and that I just didn’t know how to put what I feel into words. She very thoughtfully sent me an immediate reply that they knew I had been with them throughout the journey.

An hour or so later I got the urge to straighten up some piles of stuff I had put on a bookcase. Jobs like that are not in my nature – I am a clutterer. But there I was on my knees reaching and spreading things around me. As I pulled out one small box of clippings, my father’s wallet fell onto my lap and out of it slid an old picture, extremely worn from being transferred from wallet to wallet to wallet.

I recognized it right away as Robert Allen; it was so worn and soft that it felt like cloth in my hand and one little piece flaked off, as other pieces had obviously already done over the years.

I don’t know if it is a sign; I don’t know if Daddy was telling me that spirits never die and that his is looking over his nephew and grandnephew. I feel that maybe it is just that, and this is one of those times when “feeling” is more real than “knowing”.