We were out running errands when my father-in-law, Harry, stopped in his tracks. “A-ha!” he said, bending down to get something from the sidewalk. “There’s one!”
“One what, Dad?” I asked. All I could see on the ground was an old paper clip. Dad picked it up as if he’d just discovered gold.
“You never know when you might need a paper clip,” Dad said. He’d managed a stationery store in Sunbury for 35 years, so he would know. “They can bind loose papers, seal a bag of chips, even hold a falling hemline or tie in place. They’re marvelous!” No matter where we were, if Dad saw a paper clip on the ground, he wouldn’t leave without picking it up.
Sadly, Dad passed away in 2009. Not long after, I was leaving work when I saw something shiny lying in the grass. I bent down to get a closer look. A paper clip! Oh, I miss you, Dad, I thought, remembering his quirky obsession.
Soon paper clips were showing up everywhere: on the empty passenger seat of my car, in my wallet, in the middle of a freshly vacuumed carpet. You never know when you might need one, I thought the day I picked up a clip that had somehow gotten into my jewelry box.
That’s when I got the idea to string them together. I call it my “Hellos from Harry” chain and now it measures over five feet long. I miss Dad every day but whenever I add another paper clip to that chain, I’m reminded that he’s never very far away.
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