It was worn, brown leather. It had been carried for years and one day it taught me two valuable lessons — even though I had to be an adult to truly appreciate them.

We grew up in the time when you ate at home. Mom cooked. Kids washed up. The meals often featured meat we had raised ourselves and called by name. Of course there was also the meat that Daddy or my brother hunted. (Yes, I know. Some people don’t like hunting — I get that. I went hunting with my Dad once, he sat me on a rock and told me to not talk to the deer that passed. He knew I wouldn’t shoot one. However, for our family of six, elk and venison were an important part of our diet and they made feeding the family affordable.) Our family rarely enjoyed a meal at a restaurant. So “going out” was truly a treat.

My Mom worked at the hospital and often worked weekends. It was on one of those Sundays that we decided to treat our Dad to “lunch out.” My sisters babysat and had other jobs — they saved their money and maybe my brother and I pitched in what we had. We went to a small cafe on Main Street. I really don’t remember much about lunch, but at the end, the waitress brought the ticket. I watched as my oldest sister looked at the ticket, swallowed, and began counting the money. She counted it two or three times and my stomach began hurting. I knew that something was dreadfully wrong.

Finally, my self-assured, confident sister looked at Daddy with tears in her eyes and softly said, “Daddy….”

He responded just as I would expect, “I guess you guys are going to be doing some dishes.” And then, of course, he reached for his wallet. There was no money in the bill section. He held it open and showed it to us so we wouldn’t think he was teasing. He began removing documents from the small compartments: license, social security card (back before we were warned to not carry them), along with a few other small items. After that, he began pulling out school photos of his four children.

Somewhere in my head, I expected him to pull out four pictures, one each of Byrlene, Gayla, Frank, and Marylouise. Instead, he pulled out a picture for each year of school through which we had passed: grade school, junior high, and high school. He continued to search, and he finally pulled out a small folded object, a $20 bill. Tossing it to my sister, he said, “I was afraid I had spent it.”

We all began to breath easier.

As he was returning things to his wallet, I stacked four sets of pictures putting the most recent on top. Daddy took them from me and carefully placed them back in his wallet. Byrlene took “our” money along with Daddy’s $20 and went to the counter to pay the bill.

Yes, the obvious lesson was learned. Be prepared. Seriously though, what 10 year old girl truly understands the concept of “being prepared?” I’ve come to understand the importance of that lesson as an adult — even though I saw the importance of it, up close and personal, that Sunday at a Colorado diner.

The second lesson is one that I have come to truly understand as a mother — even though, in truth, I learned it from my Daddy’s wallet. You see, I’ve come to recognize how Daddy loved his kids. He loved us at every stage of our life and he treasured the memories from every age. In the pictures, he could see the growth spurts, the awkward stages, the missing (or broken) teeth, the hair cuts, the freckles, crooked smiles, and questionable fashion. In all of these things and stages there were treasures of memories and hopes, successes and failures, gangly limbs, and bright shining eyes. He treasured them all. Four stacks of photos were proof of that.