Pennies from Dad

My father died in 2011, at the age of 99. Daddy was always one of those guys who saved his pennies. I had occasionally found pennies on the ground when I was out and about, but after my dad passed away, it seemed as though the number I was finding increased. I began finding them almost every day. When one or two days would go by without my finding one, I would then find a Nicole, dime, or quarter instead. One day I jokingly picked one up and said aloud, “Thanks, Daddy”. My son was with me and asked what I was doing so I told him about finding all of the pennies and other change. It became a running joke between my son and I that my dad was leaving the pennies.<br /> In the spring of 2017, my son took a job Working at Six Flags Over Texas on the railroad. Six Flags is a theme park and operates antique steam locomotives as one of the rides. Some days, Rowan would be working as a Conductor on the train and, as a part of his duties, would be responsible for cleaning the coaches between runs. Every few days he would come home and hand me a penny or two and remark “ Grandaddy must have been on the train again”. We would laugh and I would toss the coins into my bank. Rowan had been working on the train for 4 months and had moved up to Engineer. However, on May 26 of that year, he was asked to be the Conductor on the train for the day. It was his 21st birthday. When he came home from work that afternoon, he came directly to me and said “ You know how we always joke about Grandaddy leaving the pennies?” I said yes and asked him if there was something wrong. He didn’t say anything, but reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of pennies. I looked at the large number of pennies in his hand and asked if they had come from the train. He replied yes, they had and that there were exactly 21 of them.