Thank you, Pop:

Two weeks after my father’s funeral, I decided I was finally ready to start the bittersweet task of sorting through his personal affects one Saturday morning. Feeling the now all too familiar lump rise up in my throat, I clamped down on my emotions and willed myself to drive to Pop’s on a bright, sunny day that completely contrasted my melancholy.

All along the short journey to his house in the industrial side of town, I drove by the gritty, somewhat shabby landscape that was my childhood backdrop. The old warehouse converted to an auto auction site that even during the day looked abandoned. The dive bar that many of hardened, dirty shipyard workers patroned after second and third shifts. Thankfully, Pop worked the first shift and did not have the drinking vice. Instead, he did the poor man’s gamble with the state lottery. After his long days doing the dangerous work of fixing giant boilers in the belly of one of the shipbuilding hangars, he would go to the dank convenience mart and treat himself to the lottery scratch offs every Friday afternoon.

As a single father raising a scrappy, tomboy daughter, Pop allowed himself few luxuries. His ritual coming home those days was a memory that brought a faint smile to my face. No matter how tired he was, he would greet me exuberantly, talk to me over an oftentimes simple dinner of fish sticks and cheesy Mac, and in the late evening settle in to his chair with his weekly scratch-off tickets. A decades-long lottery aficianado, Pops loved the little thrill of winning a few bucks here and there.

”Hey Lovey! I won forty bucks! Not bad for a five-dollar ticket,” he exclaimed on many occasions.

I would smile most days, would say something like, “Cool! Can we go get some saltwater taffy and hot dogs by the pier this weekend?”

“Sure, baby,” he would often say, ruffling my often messy hair.

My mind inevitably drifted back to those happier times when Pop’s enduring, comforting presence was my constant in life. He loved those scratch offs so much. I often was mildly amused, but always delighted to benefit somehow from his habit. I would only learn as an adult and subsequently be shocked by just how much stuff I had funded thanks to his small-time lottery playing. However, in the times before I would know the truth, I was content for my dad that something small like lottery tickets would bring him some joy in an otherwise hardscrabble existence.

Pop would also tell me, somewhat paradoxically, “Remember, baby: gambling isn’t design for anyone to win. Only get what you can afford to lose. And remember...with scratch-offs, get three tickets at a time. You have a one-in-three chance of winning something statistically.” He also taught me to pay myself anytime I got paid or an unexpected monetary gift, so that my savings can support some things I want. He always stressed that his lotto play was supposed to be for fun. He absolutely delighted in scratching off every number, leaving the prizes covered into the end. He eschewed the modern scanners available in his later years to automatically check if tickets were winners. I concluded and understood that it was a fun pasttime, harmless hobby for Pop, and the message of his otherwise wise words on saving money stuck to me positively.

Knowing now what I do about gambling thanks to being the first to go to and complete college, I know it is better to put that money instead in a CD or money market account. Pop worked in a blue-collar industry, made decent money and had a pension.

His hard, back-breaking work and savings did pay for my university education, allowing me to graduate debt-free. Furthermore, he had insurance that paid off both his funeral, house, cars and other debts. In other words, Pop’s lottery habit didn’t ever make his daughter suffer or his finances.

Due to my higher education and my post-college career in the mortgage business, I could not acquire seriously the same habit Pop had, but would admittedly buy a ticket when the multi-state jackpot hit nine figures. One can dream after all, even a straight-laced loan officer like me. I took this turn of thoughts as a sign that maybe Pop could now align the heavenly constellations in my favor should I buy a ticket. Despite a small smile at the thought I teared up. I would miss my father.

Going into Pop’s house, smelling the familiar scents of burned wood and the faintest hits of his signature Aqua Velva, I looked around his mostly empty house. I already had movers come in to get the heavy furniture out and donated, and cleaners would come in again first thing Monday to pick up the rest of the items and take what was left to the dump.

Pop was not particularly sentimental, a trait that he passed down to me. In the business that is death, it was a blessing to not be burdened with a house full of things. He did, however, have the usual collection of a life lived: photographs, paperwork, books and such. Virtually all of that was in his bedroom, the only room in the house I did not have anyone enter to clear out. In the last year of his life, when he needed assistance cleaning, cooking and check-ups from nurses, he had prudently put a lock on his door. He made sure to give me the keys on his deathbed in the hospital, telling me that anything of value he would have to leave to me was in that room. At the time, pushing back against the inevitable and not asking any question, I gently took the envelope with the two keys and only set foot into the room now almost a month after he died.

Almost hesitangly, as if I was intruding, I stepped into his bedroom. Looking around his neat but otherwise unremarkable room, I wondered what on earth I would find. Pops was not a particularly secretive guy, but every once in a while he could surprise me. I knew the larger key opened up his room, now what was the smaller key for?

As I walked around the small room looking in places where the other key could go to, it didn’t take me long to realize it was the drawer and lower cabinet of his nightstand. Intrigued, I used the other key to unlock the nightstand, pulling out the drawer first.

In the drawer resided a durable leather black book. Did my dad keep a journal? It was one of those notebooks that had the shoestring ties, and it was definely aged a bit. I sat on the floor to look at the mystery black book. I untied the leather bindings and in doing so, I saw a ledger of sorts. The columns of numbers dated back from late 1988 to about 5 months before Pop passed. The only thing that stuck out at first was that I was born that year and that was also when Pop started working at the shipyard.

As I turned the pages and looked further, I concluded that it was a legder of some kind. Alongside the dates, items were listed, such as, “Trip to the Jersey shore”, “prom dress” and a lot of lines read “tuition”. Hmmmm, I thought. Some of the numbers were small amounts. Some, however, were significant in size.

“10/31/1999, $ 100, Haunted Hayride, vampire costume and candy bags”11/9/1995, $50, Trip to amusement park and lunch”. That was my seventh birthday.

One particular small detail caught my eye, and read like this:

“7/14/2002, $40, Saltwater taffy and hot dogs”

I took a deep breath, and a tear slid down my face. I realized then that my dad did, in fact, have an open secret of sorts. I turned to the beginning of the mystery black book that I had solved within a few minutes, and the cover was simply titled, “Winnings”.

I found his lottery winnings records book, and he spent most of the winnings on me throughout my life.

“11/9/2004, $2500, car for Lovey”. My sixteenth birthday.

”08/21/2006, $10,000, College tuition, books, room and board”. Different dates throughout my college attendance and graduation continued on inside the black book, all with numbers both small and large.

Wow. The lottery paid for a good portion of my education. I sat on the floor, taking it all in for a few moments the absolute luck Pop seemed to have with scratching lottery tickets and then was touched by the generosity he shared with me.

I stood up from the floor, and something from the black book fluttered to the ground.

A lottery ticket. Already scratched off, I saw. As I looked closer, I realized it was a winner. A twenty-thousand dollar winner that he had yet to cash. My breath let out a whoosh and through my bittersweet tears, I smiled a watery smile. Pop saved it for me to cash.

“Thank you, Pop,” I said softy.